why write?
why write? every time i'm faced with a mammoth project that seems millions of times bigger than i am and i wonder where it all is going to come from i ask myself why do i bother? why not pick some nice, safe, stifling, mind-numbing career that entails a cheap polyester suit and a cubicle? if anything, i'd have the joys of watercooler gossip.
in those dark moments, i read things like the quotation below and i am once again able to reach inside myself and blur the page (or, as this article i'm writing at the moment proposes, the water) with an infinite number of colours --- blinding, beautiful, buxom colours. okay, maybe my (brush) stroke needs a little work, but for now, i'm happy to dip my finger tips in and smear the paper with infantile, gooey blobs of paint.
"When I write, it's everything that we don't know we can be that is written out of me, without exclusions, without stipulation, and everything we will be calls us to the unflagging, intoxicating, unappeasable search for love. In one another we will never be lacking."
-- Hélène Cixous.
in those dark moments, i read things like the quotation below and i am once again able to reach inside myself and blur the page (or, as this article i'm writing at the moment proposes, the water) with an infinite number of colours --- blinding, beautiful, buxom colours. okay, maybe my (brush) stroke needs a little work, but for now, i'm happy to dip my finger tips in and smear the paper with infantile, gooey blobs of paint.
"When I write, it's everything that we don't know we can be that is written out of me, without exclusions, without stipulation, and everything we will be calls us to the unflagging, intoxicating, unappeasable search for love. In one another we will never be lacking."
-- Hélène Cixous.
posted by Amanda Bonner at 12:54 p.m.
3 Comments:
Thank you for Cixous!
Anne Sexton says:
"A woman who writes knows too much,
those trances and portents!
As if cycles and children and islands
weren’t enough; as if mourners and gossips
and vegetables were never enough.
She thinks she can warn the stars.
A writer is essentially a spy.
Dear love, I am that girl.
—Anne Sexton, “The Black Art”
I also like to think of D.H. Lawrence's take on 'the black art' of writing: "After all, what is mankind but just one expression of the incomprehensible. And if mankind passes away, it will only mean that this particular expression is completed and done. That which is expressed, and that which is to be expressed, cannot be diminished."
--from Women in Love
Actually, another reason:
Why Write? Because you HAVE to, it is a force you can't control. Writing chooses you; you don't choose it. You can ignore it, but it will be at your own peril. The blessing of language is a gift to be treasured and respected. Respect it, my dear, as I know you do, and it will respect you.
happy writing darling!
cm, thank you for the inspiration. i think you're last comment (writing chooses you) is particularly apt. sometimes i need to remember just how damn lucky i am to be chosen.
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