Tag Archives: books

Curated

I’ve wrestled with writing and with expressing creativity in general. If you’ve spent any time in this space, you are as painfully aware of it as I am. It has never been about the commitment to consistency or the love of translating experiences and feelings into words on a page. I think the struggle lies in the why of it all.

I’m slowly learning that writing has shaped the person I am inside, as I have sought to understand how to move through this world and with these people in different seasons. Both my writing and the words of others have helped name my reactions and responses to the good and bad that share space uneasily in the world and in my own inner self. As a child, I would discover a clearing in a forest, sun filtering through leaves. A magical space where silence wasn’t actually quiet but was simply the absence of the riot of noise we produce as humans moving through our modern life. Such a discovery would produce feelings that were deep and important, and I didn’t know how to understand the literal pull of longing I would feel. Then I would read the writing of LM Montgomery as she drew out both descriptive details and illustrated with words the bigger picture, and something inside of me would sigh with the relief of resonance. It is a very specific feeling; even trying to say it here feels inadequate and disrespectful of its heft.

While this would not have been true when I was younger, I suspect that the constant chase to document all of life in photos is a parallel experience for others. Where I might use words to capture an ephemeral feeling and transform it into something Real that Happened, the camera lens serves as proof that what one sees actually existed and meant something. I’m not opposed, although I tend to capture on film (file?) an image that will bring something back to me specifically but not necessarily mean anything to an outside viewer. (Moment of truth: this is true in my writing as well, which likely makes it fairly bewildering to many readers) Perhaps we all have a way we try to identify or categorize or codify our feelings into something that proves we were there.

In today’s world, I worry that in the spirit of progress and the better way, we are killing our inner drive to truly know ourselves. Somehow, we seem to take a good idea or tool and skip right past its best and highest use. For centuries, large people groups lacking formal education could not write. Expression happened through oral history and storytelling, but how often does one sort out their own personal feelings in that manner (and in a world where life was hard, hard, hard – who had the time to do anything beyond carry forward history)? With the spread of education came the ability to write, and from that an even larger group of poets and novelists emerged, helping put permanence to experiences and training generations of readers that they could do the same for themselves. But even as we discovered so many outstanding voices capturing generational human experience in words, Artificial Intelligence has now crept in to say, I can do that for you. If you already did it yourself, I can make it “better”. I can learn about you and then shortcut you to success. I can curate for you. I can curate you.

Similarly, the widespread accessibility of cameras and affordability of production and storage via digital format opened the door for amazing everyday people to document life in meaningful and beautiful ways. However, on the heels of this discovery came the online social media platforms, which lured us in with their ease of sharing and then turned on us, overwhelming us with the Algorithm that very authoritatively shows us the best way – the only way – to dress or travel or style our hair or pose with friends or position our couch. This algorithm, so difficult to manipulate, feels like literal brainwashing in its unending, inhuman dedication to curate our lives to its specifications.

The why of creativity is easily lost in a fast fashion world of expression. I think this is what stops me from putting words where anyone can see them. But I’m slowly coming to see that real writing is a form of rebellion. It is messy and riddled with less-than-ideal word choices and unclear plotlines and unnecessary punctuation. My writing is, anyway. I don’t claim to be A Writer, but perhaps there are plenty of those out there already. Perhaps the world can use a few people who just want to translate what’s inside into words on the off chance that they might be better understood for who they are – and show others they can do the same. Perhaps, perhaps.

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What is good writing, really?

DAY NINE.

I wrote earlier about participating in a Writing Battle, suggesting that I might post that short story in support of the accountability I am seeking in this exercise. As it turns out, the rules do prohibit that. I characterize myself generally as a rule-follower, for a few reasons. The reason most people don’t know about? A theory, tested and supported over years.

Anarchists (to a greater or lesser degree) by definition defy all rules and thus, society tends to dismiss them or compartmentalize them away from credibility or acceptance. However, when a rule-follower challenges or breaks a rule, people snap to attention. Disrupting the status quo selectively can be a strategic tool for change. Without the identity of breaking-rules-because-I-can, the rule-follower often wields greater power simply by being taken more seriously.

In this instance, I see no compelling reason to break the Writing Battle’s rule, so know that I will post that story when the full Battle is complete and I have permission to do so. However, I’ve been faced with an interesting, additional challenge from the Writing Battle. As participants, we also serve as judges in “story duels.” We are provided two stories, from a different genre than the writing prompt we followed, and are tasked with giving thoughtful feedback to both and selecting a “winner” between the two.

This is hard!

I had no idea how hard this would be.

It doesn’t help that the genre I am “judging” is probably one of my least favorite types of literature or storytelling. I will read anything, and do (I’ve only ever stopped and thrown away, literally trashed, one book in my entire life – it was so badly written as to be virtually unreadable). I exist as a reader with virtually no standards, seeking to enjoy the telling of a story in many forms. Now I find myself forced to choose the better story – or really, the better writing (because the writing uplifts or suppresses the story it seeks to tell).

So, what is good writing? It feels like a specific offshoot of the often-asked question, what is art? Is it something that makes you feel? Is it transporting the reader effectively into another time, world, experience? Must it be impossible to put down, or can it be so powerful as to require breaks in order to process?

I don’t know. If I knew that, I guess I would actually and officially be a writer.

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Write Every Day, Day One

Is there any chance I can actually do this?

In real life, most would characterize me as extremely disciplined. Which I generally am, although not by nature. My true self dreams of sitting in filtered sunlight, reading a not-terribly-highbrow book while snacking on chips and a Diet Coke. Preferably with the ocean’s soundtrack and an onshore breeze. This fact seems to surprise those same people.

I am disciplined not by nature but by necessity. The past three decades required it. I look to the first two years after college, working in a professional setting while maintaining a long-distance relationship that ultimately led to marriage. The early days of supporting my husband’s business, which required me to drive directly from my 9 to 5 job to man the front desk until close (meaning that having dinner to eat in the car required preplanning before leaving the house in the morning, because there was no money to drive through somewhere every day). Having two children under two years old as we stretched again in opening a second business, with a household budget equally stretched, making every moment of naptime or Mother’s Day Out fully productive to keep life running. Menu planning down to each meal of each day in order to successfully navigate everyone’s practices/games/lessons/church activities. Making a “cleaning schedule” for Saturday morning, assigning an exact timeframe to each area of the house and, if I completed that area in a shorter amount of time, giving myself the leftover time to read and snack (a common theme for me).

I wanted it all. A husband pursuing his dream business rather than just doing some job for someone else. Children with a variety of options to develop skills and interests that build brain, body, and spiritual growth. Meals that gave everyone the best chance at good health and happiness. A warm, welcoming, clean home as a place of retreat and rest. A separate business to use creative and strategic skills to financially contribute to the family. A place (emotional and physical) for friends in need to come for peace. An anchor for the family ship in any kind of weather.

Discipline doesn’t help achieve these dreams. These dreams demand it. Discipline says, “If you truly want this, I am the way.” I wanted it. Discipline delivered.

I now occupy a very different reality. With adult children very nearly launched, our household of two ebbs and flows more easily through those dreams. The beautiful outcome of years of discipline is a lightening of its load. With that in mind, I turn to the mirror to see what else lives there – what came before those decades we have moved through. Writing was one such dream, occasionally surfacing across the years but never calling out for its due attention. And here I sit, struggling as new openness and availability battles with a lack of discipline around this particular art and expression.

The primary element – excuse? – that always freezes me into inaction is fear. Why should I write publicly? Isn’t that implying that people should be reading what I am writing? Why would anyone want to read what I write? Even asking that question feels wildly uncomfortable, knowing that it could be perceived as fishing for compliments or affirmation (neither of which is the case). Having grappled with this feeling for years and conveniently finding no good time to come to resolution, I find that good time is now. Do I write because I care what other people think, or because there are words that want to get out and I need a place to put them? Certainly the latter. My husband told me he wishes me to write so that there is a record, in my words, out in the world. A record of what, I ask? Nothing in particular, he says. Just your words. The things you think and say. The air doesn’t hold them; writing does.

So I decide it is time to write. Writing in public, as the internet certainly is, ultimately serves as accountability. If I can learn discipline around things no one loves (cleaning bathrooms?), I can build discipline in this. Starting today.

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