I Sound Like Those People Who Say Things

Here I am, typing in the little box. This little box is kind of intimidating. A lot of space here. Nothing going on. Just the little cursor and me and an unlimited amount of white space. I wonder if it's actually unlimited.

I wonder if a person could post a whole novel in this white space. Not that I have a novel or even anything novel-length, but even so. I wonder if blogger ever cuts you off. "That's enough of you."

I hated twitter. Resented it mightly. Not only did I have trouble discerning how it was differently useful than facebook, I always supposed it was for people who didn't have very elaborate thoughts and therefore didn't need much space to express them. The character limit struck me as enforced middling. Forced abbreviation. Keep your idea simple or don't express it at all. Concision is important, but abbrevation is something else.

Plech.

Write every day.

That's why they say. The people who tell other people what to do to improve their writing.

"What should I do if I want to be a writer?"

"Write every day."

To be a writer, write. That's what they say. Thanks for nothing, people who say things.

But here I am. Writing for the sake of it.

Some people have achievement fantasies about writing. They suppose writing is for everyone what it was for them--a matter of practice, habit, training. It's an issue of muscle memory as much as any vocation or avocation. The road to excellence in writing is the same as the road to excellence in Kung Fu or ice skating. How people can say this is beyond me. I suspect it has to do with encouraging people who lack native talent. I think people who lack native talent can become good--or at least better--writers through something like "practice," but nevertheless, some people with no experience at all can pick up a pen or sit down at a keyboard and turn out extraordinary things. Their fundamental understanding of language and their relationship to it is writing-friendly. Their practice has been in their speech and their ears and their world-viewing habits. Some people, simply, need no practice at all to write well.

I have never heard of anyone who came to excellent Kung Fu or ice skating by accident.

But still, folks persist. "If you want to write well, you need to practice writing." Maybe I should not rag on them. It's probably true for a large percentage of aspiring writers. People who come to writing organically, automatically, and without effort are probably in a strict and small minority.

But I wonder if people who do come to writing naturally ever practice their way to mediocrity.

Like, if you come to writing naturally, and you sit down and do it, and study it and slowly begin throwing out your quirks of language, undo your habits of voice, what results? The lowest common denominator?

Maybe Dean Koontz was, by nature, an incredible experimental poet. Now he's out there writing airport suspense. (Is Dean Koontz still alive?)

My personal feeling is that writing well has more to do with reading than writing.

Maybe I'm just another sayer, saying things are true because they have been true in my experience.

Maybe it's because I started out as a poet. Poets can tell, immediately, if other poets do not read much poetry. Good poets, almost universally, read incredible amounts of poetry. "Good" is subjective. Okay, let me put it this way instead: People who write bad poetry usually have very little experience or interest in reading poetry. "Bad" seems like it should be subjective, but God as my witness, there is unequivocally bad poetry out there. I refuse to hedge or barter in that respect.

Still, reading a lot of poetry is no guarantee that you're going to write well. I'm just saying it can't hurt.

It has something to do with using your eyes to develop an ear. A strange phenomenon. True, a lot of people who read poetry read it aloud to themselves as part of the reading process. That's what they have been told to do by the same sayers who say things like "write every day."

"You really need to read poetry aloud to appreciate it. Reading aloud should be part of any poetry-reading experience."

I don't believe that, either.

I don't read poetry aloud, and I don't write poetry that is intended to be read aloud. Nevertheless, I consider myself acutely aware of rhythm, cadence, and sound. Eye sound? Somewhere in here...I chose "without effort" rather than "effortlessly" because "effortlessly" offended my ear. My eye-ear. Too much "ly" happening. I deleted it and typed something else. No real reason. Nothing wrong with it syntactically, but I didn't like the look-sound of it.

And I might add, too, that--and I think most poets would agree--being a good poet has more to do with being a good editor and arranger than with being a good writer. Maybe all writing is that way to an extent, but poetry is, for sure, created mostly with the use of an Exacto knife. And maybe a chainsaw before that.

Writing is mysterious. When it rolls, it's a zen-like experience. You don't write it so much as it manifests. When it's not rolling, it comes haltingly, jerking, tremoring. It has Parkinson's disease. In this case, it comes, in large part, in someone else's voice. A voice I learned when I was acutely unsure of myself and my prose. Short sentences, short paragraphs, leaping all over the place. It's Brad Listi.

Not always, not everywhere, but this voice is predominantly borrowed. When in doubt about what to wear, let someone else dress you. Steal someone else's look. They look good in it, so it's probably safe, even if it's not "you." It will do for now.

For the record, I consider myself a very average writer. None of this is meant to say, "I'm so great and I got this way by _____." I have to offer that disclaimer. I can think of no reason why anyone should believe anything I say except that I have put uncommon amounts of thought into it. I could be totally wrong. No idea what's going on. Just another sayer, saying things.

I hope I will be able to shake this cloak. If I'm going to get to the business of writing again, I have to be careful what I read and how much. I'm a mimic by nature. Totally affected.