Writing takes diligence. It takes discipline and timing. Writing is not only about talent and ability, not even mostly. It is about perseverance and ego. It takes self-esteem, self-worth, and acceptance. It is about having something to say and believing that the world ought to hear it. It is about observance and experience. It is about compassion and understanding. Writing takes involvement and experience. It is about honesty, brutal and beautiful. It is about being in the world, being part of the world, and being removed from it too. It is about emotion, but not too much about emotion. It is about balance and willingness. It is about communication. It is about change and inertia. It is about stories and histories. It takes a command of language. It takes courage. But mostly, writing takes fortitude and diligence and discipline. As a writer, I am an abject failure.
Over the years, and surprisingly to me, through the course of this class, I have had the opportunity to discover much about myself as a writer, about where I am at presently. To be completely honest with myself, taking into account what every teacher has ever told me, I have skills as a writer. I have an ability to lay down words and to open them up. I have the motives of a writer. Writing is much like breathing to me, and I must do it or my insides begin to burn. However, I have nothing of diligence and responsibility. I have nothing of the cohesion it takes to be a writer, of that balance between creation and work.
I can set up sentences easily. At times, I can even weave paragraphs together, but there is something of completion that I am missing. I lack that ever-important piece of ego it takes to actually be a writer. To me, my words are useless. I cannot place the value and talent on them that others keep insisting is there. I think this has much to do with the story of my life, but also a phenomenon I have seen in others. There is something about a natural talent, one that takes little work to have emerge, that creates a difficulty in finding its value. When work is not required for a valued outcome, it is hard to see the talent in the thing. Perhaps if I had worked more, attended to the cultivation of my writing more consistently, with more purpose, I would not have this gap.
I am not good at school, because of this problem. Comprehension and connections are not my problem. Study skills are, the ability to fulfill a due date and take responsibility for my education are. This, likewise, is my failing as a writer. I cannot take a piece and see it through to its end. I am too surrounded in fear to work through my characters and see them out the other side. I posses an inherent void in this department, and thus will never be able to call myself a writer. I will never, as such, be a writer.
As to the architecture of my writing, that same fear keeps my writing in deep metaphor. Although my lines may sound pretty, they are so wrapped in disguises and subtleties that their truths can never quite find their way to the surface. There is too much frill, bile, and mire in the language. It is sticky and thick, not smooth on the back of the throat, as it should be. Writing ought to have daggers and fire, but they should be clear, not encoded or supposed.
The beginnings of my stories come out racing and strong, but before long, turn to dribble and run down the page like a watercolor caught in a rainstorm, like the chalk drawings in Mary Poppins. That is where I lack the diligence. I cannot keep up with my characters, and once I understand where fate is taking them, I lose interest in carving out their stories. If I had more ego I would think their stories necessary for the betterment of man, or the enjoyment of man, but I do not have ego in that department.
I think my lack of self-worth and that ever-present (and annoying) shame keep me from developing as a writer. In all honesty, I would love to be a writer by trade, to make my living as a poor starving artist with a spark towards the creative, but I do not have the courage for life on the ledge like that. I do not see the point of it in myself. I do not think of my writing as indelible or ancient, or withstanding any test, let alone the test of time.
If, however, I am ever to succeed at anything, this is a border that must be crossed. If I am to grow up, to become responsible, then this nagging sense of insecurity must be sacrificed as a piece of innocence lost. One cannot afford to harbor and carry such heavy burdens as hate if one is ever to carve out a life. Sometimes I feel old. I fear that my writing will reflect that premature aging. I fear losing a piece of myself to the world, because that’s what writing is, giving up a piece of your life to the microscope of perceptions and projections thriving in the world. Once something is written, once ink is against paper, it is no longer mine, as the writer. Once I submit to the urge to create, the creation is defined by what anyone aside from myself can take from the words. Perhaps I fear what people will see in me. The only cure for that is acceptance and faith in oneself. Is that something I can manage? I think not yet, but it is something to strive for.
I have never excelled at school, although I have been warned of my potential time after time after time. I have never excelled at anything because I must defeat myself before anyone else has a chance to. I know I have the ability to write papers, to do assignments. Academically, I have that ability. Realistically, however, I am indeed disabled at this point in time. There are many things I never learned how to do that range far beyond turning in a written and proofread paper by deadline. The question is, for me, can I allow myself to write a mediocre paper and realize that perfection is unattainable, and more importantly, a bad paper is better than no paper at all, and in the end, the learning is the thing, not how cohesive a set of paragraphs thrown on a page are. Can I get over my own ego, in that sense? I do not know.
I have received so much help, support, and encouragement in this class this semester, and I feel like I have somehow managed to squander whatever respect I may have cultivated through my shortcomings as a writer. I feel as though my shortcomings, through my own machinations, define who I am as a student, and how professors will view me. At the end of all of this, thought, at the end of all of our dialogues, tears, histories, and trajectories, how many of us will allow ourselves to succeed? As a writer, I have failed miserably, but can I take that and find strength in it? Can I somehow overcome this obstacle of guidelines and deadlines and make something to my benefit? I do not see how, right now, but at least I have faith enough to keep coming back, to continue to ask for help even after the doors have been shut, and to smile in the face of my complete and utter humiliation. Maybe that smile is part of my downfall. In any case, I have not yet earned the right to call myself a writer, but I am well on my way in an apprenticeship to life, and perhaps a little farther down the line, writer can be added to my bi-line. For now I will hope for diligence, discipline, and strive for self-worth, no matter how slow in coming.
