I have a serious condition. I’m a writer…
I don’t know how this came to be, or why. But it’s just a fact of my life. I can’t help but write, and write, and write, and write some more. So many words spill out of me that I wonder if the trees and the clouds and the earth and the soil and the sea of my imagination are all composed of words. I bleed my words. Into my journals, through my fingers and into my computer. It is one way I can make sense of life, this puzzle.
I write about absolutely everything. My journal reveals all, and I am very protective of it nowadays, because it is the only thing that will listen to me, truly listen to me as I rant about my frustrations, as I try to navigate the storm of emotions that rages on within me, as emotions are prone to do, and as I express gratitude when I tame that storm and guide it back home, or channel it into art. My journal has compassion for me, as it watches on while I fall into the same traps that I have fallen into time and time again, and will once again help me get back off the ground and dust myself off so that I can proceed with my life. My journal is always there, always with me as I traipse about Dunedin, as I quest about the South Island. It is my companion, my ultimate companion, and so long as I have my journal, I am complete. There will be no single thing or single person outside of myself that will provide me with the happiness and contentment that I seek. I will find it in the silence and the solitude, as I string words together into sentences, into paragraphs.
I will go completely insane if I stop writing. It has become like breathing.
Most people know me as a musician. And I am a musician. Music is another way I seek to understand and describe the world. I play a lot of music. I sometimes wonder, though: Have I written more words in my life, or played more musical notes? I would place a bet and say that I have written more words, which is hard for me to wrap my head around, but I am sure that it is indeed the case. Writing came first. I started writing when I was seven, or eight, or nine. I can’t quite remember. But before I ever touched the piano, and before I even wielded a drum stick, I wrote words. I wrote various poems, and then I started writing my first book, which was about some moody orphan character in a moody lighthouse. After that I started writing my second book, which was about some mad Writer whose imaginary worlds would be accessible through magical doors in the basement of a rundown house, a basement which a couple of kids stumble upon. And then I started writing my third book, which was about a character called Jeremiah Pilkenhorn who lived his whole life within the confines of a wall and believed that he understood Life, until a character called Cordell appeared, to take Jeremiah outside of the wall and into the big wide world. I never finished these stories. But the important thing is that I started. And all before the age of 12.
Maybe I was destined to write. I definitely had no choice in the matter. It was either write, or… write. And I sucked for a long time. But that’s only through the lens of ‘art’ and ‘quality’, or ‘technique’ and ‘tradition’. But writing can be so much more. And I had to sit down here today to write this passage on writing because I want to inspire my friends and fellows to start writing. It doesn’t have to be good. It is the greatest tool I ever found for exploring the self, delving into the mind, solving problems of the heart, understanding the world, chipping away at the block. And I must share this, as I have always shared my writing, even when it was awfully saturated in my attempt to sound poetic. I read some of my earlier stories and I detest my earlier prose. I tried too hard to write like I knew how to write but in trying to write like I knew how to write I only ended up writing doggerel. But this is all through the artistic lens. Don’t pay a mind to the artistic lens, unless you want to become a Creative Writer. Write to write. Not for some artistic pursuit, or some worldly achievement. These things are not as important as understanding our selves. Write to explore yourself.
I realised this year that I don’t have the time to worry about what people think about me or my writing. These fears only hold me back from expressing myself. Our world is troubled and it needs our help. I have at least discovered this truth for myself, that Writing is an immensely powerful tool, and it is then my duty to help others see that, and start their own writing journey.
Become a writer. Become a writer. Become a writer!
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