"Writing (Winter Solstice 2014) - reading (on YouTube)
I often get asked the question, what does it mean to be a
writer? Ok, maybe I don’t get asked so much as the question is implied every
time I introduce myself at a party. What do you do? I’m a writer. What exactly does that mean?
It means translating the pictures that randomly flash
through my mind’s eye into words so I can share them with unsuspecting readers.
It means transfiguring real-life situations into stylized scenes and scenarios that
don’t exist. It means transcribing the imaginary conversations I have in my
head at 2 a.m. with real people over
things that can’t be changed though I often wish they could.
Writing is carving a picture one word at a time. It’s creating
a mood, evoking an emotion, inspiring readers to feel or think. It’s abstracting
an experience from everyday existence into something readers are willing to
examine, something safer even if it’s more hostile than daily life. It’s crafting
the one detail that resonates with them and sets them firmly in a place or time
where their mind fills in the rest. It’s allowing them to see.
Each word is a line or pencil stroke in a sketch. Each word
is a color brushed on canvas until, stroke by stroke, an image emerges. Each
word is the gouge of a chisel until a sculpture or woodcut takes form.
More concretely, each word is a brick laid one atop another until
sentences and paragraphs form the foundation for an imaginary landscape. With each
new word, every town, every building, every room becomes more real until my
clockwork characters can move through them and interact in some meaningful way.
As with all art and architecture, the key is finding just the right balance
between creating a piece that is sleek and esthetic, and one that is
over-designed and cluttered.
Writers are more like painters and photographers than most
people realize. Each studies the world to truly see it, looking for just the
right light and color and angle to capture a specific scene. But unlike other artists,
writers have no cool apps or toys. We don’t debate the merits of sable versus
synthetic brushes. We don’t stretch our own canvas or mix our own paints. We
don’t discuss which camera, lens and filter best captures what we see.
No writer brags about which word processor she uses, or which
pencils, pens or paper captures his words best. We no longer scrape our own
parchment or craft our own linen paper. We no longer trade secret family
recipes for ink. Even in this digital age, we rely on almost no post-processing,
only a spell-checker and maybe one for grammar. Though both of those are more malleable
and mutagenic than most readers think.
Compared to other arts and artistries, a writer’s necessities
are deceptively simple. Most days, I start with a mechanical pencil, a notebook
and a computer. The other tools that adorn my real or virtual desktop are a
dictionary with a word etymology, a thesaurus, a basic grammar handbook, a list
of baby names with meanings, and the world of Wikipedia. Other writers might
include a set of index cards, or a magnetic poetry kit. A few technophiles
might rely on a piece of organizing software, a poetry generator, or a program
that prints out random inspirational lines. From those bare bones and our imaginations,
a deep, clear well of stories spring.
A modern writer’s basic tools vary only slightly from the ones
our ancient counterparts first used impress their ideas into clay tablets with
cuneiform. Because of the relative ease of entry, and now of distribution, the
field is as crowded as a Marrakech bazaar. Each aspiring author is expected to
hawk his own wares with the skill and creative inspiration of a Mad Man maven.
In the electronic marketplace of social media, it’s become nearly impossible to
be heard above the noise. And as with almost all of our current Kickstarter
culture, the very best crowd out the competent and merely good.
So why exactly do I do it? I ask myself that question every
year. I don’t make any money. I haven’t attracted a following or fame.
Perhaps I’m just trying to re-fashion the past into
something that makes sense, or forge the future by practicing what to say or
do. Perhaps I am just killing time around the house until my wife gets home. Or
perhaps I’m merely distracting myself until the next crisis arises so that for
a few moments I feel worthwhile, able to cope and survive, if not well then
better than some around me. Or perhaps, I just want to be listened to for a
change.
The question isn’t so much why I do it as how could I not? For
me, writing is a hardwired addiction. I haven’t yet found my methadone no
matter how hard I’ve tried. When my mind settles, my imagination instinctively
takes over, poking, prodding and tweaking everything it sees. It picks apart
novels, movies and television episodes to examine their innermost details. It
gets inspired by articles and situations that scream they could serve as the
foundation for another story. It latches onto lines and dialog that whisper in
my sleep.
I guess I do it because I can. Because I have the means, the
motivation and the creative energy. Because I enjoy that brief sense of
accomplishment and serenity that comes once any given piece is posted. Because
when I sit still long enough, the itch to write something new overwhelms me,
whether a story, an essay or a poem.
The ancient Greeks believed creation was a sacred act, that
moment when some random animistic spirit possessed the artist, imbuing him with
divine inspiration, consuming her with passion. Like sex, or madness, that
flash of inspiration is that moment when all of us lose control. It’s no
coincidence that to inspire means to breathe. Scribo ergo sum. I write
therefore I am.
© 2014 Edward P. Morgan III
