On Writing, Why?

On Writing, Why - 2008-07-27 09:15

If I build it, they will come

I have lived my life waiting to be ready when the teacher arrived. It might just be a case of inflated expectations, or an unhealthy self-absorption, but I'm still waiting.

I must add, blind as I seem to be, my hearing is perfect.

It may be that there was not just one teacher and I've been learning little bits all the time -- aggregation through osmosis. It might be that I've never been truly ready. Mostly I just notice that after a person talks to me, they look in my eyes, look away, then shake their heads, slightly.

I think it's like god -- he either is or he isn't; everything or nothing -- and if he needs me to bow and scrape to have meaning -- he's more a King than a god, and I bow before no king. I seek no proof of god, it's clearly out of in my hands, what I really think I need is a bunch of smaller gods -- more hands on and accessible. I need a god proof-er to go over my copy, a god lawyer to check my background. Might even a media savvy god to handle my PR -- or a devil, it's hard to judge these days.

But what I've got is me, and I am no longer going to wait.

I've had gentle arguments with my woman about my writing. She thinks I'd be better off writing if I first figured out what people wanted, then gave it to them. Anyone can do that -- read formula romance novels, or newspapers -- they use algorithms as places to hold words, then print it out. It's the math of English -- the algebra of wordsmith's -- It takes the unknown of personality out and slaps in standards. It has a place in the world of facts and the world of simple emotions, but nothing to do with me.

I write for the person 300 years from now who accidentally finds me on a stray disk, stuck in a condemned library. I don't believe that trying to make people happy without making myself happy has a point. I also don't think it would work -- people write better than me in almost all genres. The only thing I do better than others is write exactly what the vision that drives me tells me to write, and no one on earth is better at this than me. I write for me, and because I have to or I hurt. I've spent a lot of my life hurting and I don't want to anymore.

I figure I might just be starting the alternative religion for Scientology in the 23rd century. Stranger things have happened. 

(I write because someday Connor might want to know about his Grandfather.)