It is not easy to write, in fact, it is the hardest thing that I do. Not because I do not have ideas or do not feel, but because I feel so much, and so vividly. I often fail to find the words that can precisely express what I want to say, because perhaps even I do not truly know what I want to say. The idea that writing, poetry, literature, and philosophy are forms of art is prevalent and pervasive to my worldview, and thus I deny that there is a science to writing. I will forever deny it because I believe in the freedom of writing. Is Dostoevsky not different from Camus, and Balzac from Waugh? Not just structurally, not just in their time period, but in their essence?
Sometimes I write like a pianist who gently presses the keys of a Steinway. Other times I am like an electric guitar player in New Orleans at 3 am as the colors and shadows radiate into a memory. To me, this is traditionalism in writing. It is the embodying of what you are writing, allowing the very essence and aesthetic, the deepest feeling, to take over. It is not produced, it is distilled. The words are distilled from a cloudlike state of consciousness that floats down the stream of the mind. You will notice the descriptive words that I use in this essay, and I will tell you that they are not dreamt up. I do not sit thinking over them, I do not go back and change them or alter the wording. If one is to write as an art, they should not be editing but for grammar. Why would a writer edit what they wanted to say? One must write as they feel at the moment, each word being a stroke of paint on the canvas that is the essay, never to be taken back. The idea that writing is to be analyzed, directed, and sterilized, is counter to the very basis and intent of the author, the spirit of literature, and the ideas presented themself.
Many of us who write did not one day wake up and choose to write, no, that is almost never the case. Nearly all of us felt indescribable pain, suffering, yearning, and longing for the wonderful memories we have of the past, an aesthetic from long ago, or the bittersweet hope of a better future. Sometimes we started writing because we felt love, while others from the loss of love. I ask you, is this a scientific process? Is love, aesthetics, and our souls, a science? No.
Therefore I say that proper writing is not messy, ungrammatical, or improper, but it is authentic. If an idea is valuable and is expressed by someone passionate, it has little need to be edited, if they really believe what they are saying. It is the basis of the idea of freedom of speech that we express what we believe, and in the case of writing, who would want to read something that lacks passion? In short, why should someone read what you write if you are simply churning out literature for the sake of profit, fame, or promotion?
Therefore I challenge anyone reading this, whether you simply read or write as well, do so authentically, passionately, and honestly. Read what is valuable, interesting, unique, informative, but most of all, worthwhile. If you write, allow yourself to be consumed by the creative fire and to not think, but simply to write from your consciousness to the page. That is how you will not only attract readers, but ease your suffering, in every sense.
