The shuttle arrives between 7:30 – 7:31 am on Mondays. Through the winter I am a loyal attendant. When I board, I do what I do best; pull out a good book and connect, like a plug in to a power outlet. It was on one of these average Mondays that my world was rocked. Joan Didion’s Essays and Conversations placed a kilter on my understanding. The color of understanding became vivacious, my sense of identity better defined. In a complicated yet crystal clear way, the world tipped. And this is what she said -
"I knew that I was no legitimate resident in any world of ideas. All I knew then was what I couldn't do. All I knew was what I wasn't, and it took me years to discover what I was. Which was a writer. By which I mean not a 'good' writer or a 'bad' writer but simply a writer, a person whose most absorbed and passionate hours are spent arranging words on pieces of paper. Had I been blessed with even limited access to my own mind there would be no reason to write. I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear." - Joan Didion
Snap! The word righted itself. Still wobbling, I traced the ink on the pages, her message resonating into the core of myself. What it was like to be inaccessible to my mind. Having passion for arranging words until they are just so. Writing to find myself out. Discovering what I wasn’t. Piecing together my fears and wants. I was affected by Didion’s self- awareness and further respected her essays.
Most days I feel like I should join a writing support club, an anonymous society for other special thinkers such as myself. My introduction would be full of acceptance. Hi, my name is Monica, and I am a writer. I have been diseased since birth, writing fictional stories along with friends’ birthday presents and describing non concrete things by color. If you often hear something insightful and immediately jot it down for further use, you may have been bitten. If you have ever sat next to someone on the airplane or overhear someone’s order in Subway and mentally create a character with their attributes, I invite you to the club. Friends and family do not realize they are cameos in my other universe… (insert evil cackle). My imagination frightens me, disciples me, and delights me.
Questions plague an author until they process them out on paper. As Didion once said, “Let me tell you one thing about why writers write: had I known the answer to any of these questions I would have never have needed to write a novel.” At what age to do you remember writing? Do you write with the same ease that you had in elementary school? Is writing as medicinal for you as it is for me?
- Monica Leair
- Monica Leair
I really like the idea of writing to find out what I'm thinking/feeling/knowing etc. I often don't feel like I find out much, but somehow when it's all said and done, I do feel different than when I started. Maybe that's just the good feeling of finishing something (as much as a piece is ever really finished), but I hope it all amounts to something more.
ReplyDeleteI like the question about writing with the same ease as elementary school. It seems now that I have more trouble just letting the writing happen, letting it flow. The inner-critic and the pre-written-word editor tend to stop me from writing down whatever comes to mind. Sometimes, I'm still able to push past and get into the same rambles I used to. I'm not sure if anything productive comes from that, but I always feel more "writerly" for doing so.
What a wonderful quote! Though I don't think I always write because I don't know what's going on in my own head, my most satisfying writing has come out of times that my head was just too full. I needed to write it out. Those times have turned into my most deepest personal essays, my most beloved characters.
ReplyDeleteI think I write less like this when I'm in school. Telling myself "ok, now you're going to have to be creative this weekend because there's a draft due on Monday"somehow just doesn't give the same results. I know most writers say that you should write everyday, but I don't. I honestly don't think I ever will. I write when there's something in me that needs to be said, that needs to make its way onto the page. The less often I need to tell myself "ok, you have to write something now," the more often my creativity pushes through on its own and says "I'm here! I'm a character with a story! Write me down!"
That was a really great post, Monica. We write to figure out what we are thinking, to understand the world better, to discover. That was a great idea: that you sit down not because you know what to say but because you are going to figure out what to say. In an article I read recently (or maybe we talked about this in class), I read about (or we talked about) the need for greater self-awareness. You know, Didion talks about her past... just knowing what she couldn't do and what she wasn't. But it's so important to discover WHO we are. To have greater confidence in ourselves because we know ourselves. Or to have the interest to figure the world out.
ReplyDeleteI feel like I can totally relate with you here, Monica! It is interesting to think about what makes a writer a writer and why we write. My inspiration often strikes me at random moments throughout the day, so I try to keep a notebook constantly at hand just in case. One thing that has really surprised me is how many things you can do with words and a slip of paper--they can become anything you want, and you can show them to other people and express things and ideas in countless ways.
ReplyDeleteWriting has proven itself for me as a means of self-discovery, and more than that it has also been a means of world discovery, and how we fit into the world and interact with it. It's such a fascinating idea!
Monica, this was a really beautiful post. I don't know how you do it, but somehow, everything you write just sounds so poetic. Kudos!
ReplyDeleteI most definitely cannot write with the same sort of ease as I could when I was younger. I first remember my real awakening for story-telling being in 7th grade, but now that I think back, I've always been writing stories. I am so amazed at how many old stories are saved on my computer...and how long they are! I think now, "How in the world did I have the time to write all that?"
Well, because I was writing for fun, because I enjoyed it. It wasn't for homework or any grade. I could do what I pleased, write what and how much I wanted. And I did. Nowadays, I'm saddened by the fact that I can't write with the fluidity I had then. It just came out of me. Now, it's a chore to just get to 2500 words on a short story. I don't know what happened or what to do to fix it. I hope it gets better. Maybe after I graduate and don't have to write creative stories for homework, my nack for pouring out story after story will come back.
Or, maybe it's the other way around. I know more about writing, so it takes me longer to invest in my pieces...I don't know. But I hope my love for writing never dies out.
There are several things i connected with in your post. First off, i like your metaphor for reading on the bus. It fit really well with the scene of boarding the shuttle each morning.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing, i am also fascinated with how writing shows us who we are. This is especially true for me as an external processor: i think and know my own thoughts best when i am talking or writing. In some way, i feel that my words know me best. When i write something, the words on the page give me a portrait of convictions, values, interests; what's interesting, (now that i think about it,) sometimes i write something with someone else's convictions or interests, and when i look at those words, i find out who i am not.
Your post thirdly interested me with this idea of writing to ask questions. i am more of an answers-type of guy, yet i would like to explore how language can help me ask my own questions more powerfully and with more clarity. Perhaps then, with the question put to words and characters, i can begin to answer it.
"I knew that I was no legitimate resident in any world of ideas."
ReplyDeleteThat sentence quoted was what got to me the most, but less because I'm a writer and more because I'm a reader.
Sure, I've spent my life writing now and then, but everybody really knew me as the one with my nose in a book. I loved stories, and I lived every story that I read.
Recently, I tried to explain to someone what that felt like, and the best I could come up with was "world-jumper." I was never in one story world for long, but neither was I happy sticking with this world. That's where your quote fits in, I think--it made me think about how I'm always on the move, never happy to stay in a single world.
Like I said, though, that's me as a reader. Can I play the role of writer and create worlds, too? I guess we'll find out!
Haha I love this. I always felt a little bit like a weirdo because of my abstract ideas and my desire to make up stories. Especially when I was in Jr. High. I'd write huge 70-page long fictional stories that would very much fit into the Bad Writing Parties we have at NWC. So many people look at me strangely when I tell them that I like to read for fun - still! And we're in college. I think as we get older, however, it gets less and less weird. It's no longer all about Hollister and bleached hair - people seem to be finally figuring out that the body is more than clothes and we are all created in brilliant shades that reflect the Creator. I love your thoughts - keep it up.
ReplyDelete