Writing (Winter Solstice 2014)

"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.

So as you settle in on this solstice night, I wish you all the best in your artistic endeavors. Whatever creative addiction calls you, may your muse burn warm and bright.


© 2014 Edward P. Morgan III