I guess that makes me a writer! Writing is painstaking. I write to put my thoughts and feelings on paper, to express my life experience, to share what's going on in my head, to try to make sense of what I think and feel. If I didn't write I very well may lose my mind! In a sense it is the most natural thing I do. So why is it so difficult? How can it be an intrinsic part of who I am and be so difficult at the same time? Precisely for the reason the amazing Stephen King states here:
Writers write because there is something inside of them that is dying to get out. It comes from the deepest part of ourselves. It's an expression of something deep inside our hearts, our psyches. The words we put on paper are immensely important to us and never seem sufficient to express what's in our minds.
When they are in our head they are, as Stephen King stated, timeless. We pour our heart and soul onto the paper. We "bleed" onto the paper, as Ernest Hemingway put it. The blood we see on paper is an inadequate expression of its inspiration.
A writer searches for words that adequately express the sorrow experienced in the face of a tragedy or that truly reflect the depth of a mother's love and commitment to for her children. As a writer I may search myself for a way to express the truly unconditional nature of my love for my lover. I may try create a sentence that accurately portrays the pure terror of being stalked by a mad man. Words fail in these cases. They fall short.
Thus the internal conflict that accompanies writing. As writers we feel a compulsion to put ourselves on paper. It's who we are. Once we do so, however, we feel inadequate. It is the nature of the process. A process we wouldn't give up if we had the choice because to do so would be to allow part of ourselves to die.
Well said!
ReplyDeleteThanks David!
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