On Writing

With traveling comes the inevitable travel journal. However, I've become frustrated with writing. I'm frustrated with it because of the many ways it continually fails to be what I want it to be. I want writing to be an organic, spontaneous, and almost sanctimonious process, one that is complete, real, and flawless from the moment I sit down to write.
Read the rest...
I want to sit down with my pen (pen even!) and produce flawless prose that stirs passion and argues clearly. I want my first draft to be my final draft; I want to write pure inspiration, and simply walk away feeling its perfection. But that is not how I write.

While I like to think that my best writing has moments of inspiration, my writing is often a long and arduous task, where I struggle with my inability to write like the authors I read. My texts are traditionally mishmash constructions, Frankensteinian creations that take pieces from multiple drafts in an attempt to bring an idea to life. I have always needed multiple drafts and major revisions in the attempt to purify my many scattered thoughts into a coherent idea. Picking the best parts from each individual idea and concept I try and fuse them together to make something that works, something better than any of the pieces individually(a process that is not always successful). But this way of writing, the way my mind works, isn't how I want it to... and that frustrates me.

Another major frustration of writing for me (specifically seen in my non-academic writing) is the amount of time it takes to write. I think that writing should be an inherently quick and simple process, an acknowledged falsehood but for some reason that is still my default thought. I have an idea in my head and I want its spontaneous generation on paper, in contrast to the lengthy birthing process it often takes. "And God(Josh) said, 'Let there be light(or a luminous text)' and there was light and it was good." But my creations are not so quick in their construction, instead I make ever collapsing sand castles of words until I find something that is finally able to stand up.

But I guess these frustrations should be taken in light of why I write. While I want writing to be something that is quick, beautiful, and perfect, I often end up writing as a way of creating meaning for the events in my life. One of my high school teachers once told me, "If you don't write it down it never happened." That idea has stuck with me for over a decade now, and I think there is a lot of truth in that simple phrase. If I don't take time to write about something, to process it, to evaluate it, then it is simply more water under the bridge...another event in a series of events that goes unnoticed. But if I take the time to write and describe the event, then it becomes distinct and meaningful. Writing in this way is less about the final product and more about the process of writing (which feels similar as to say, why most people run or perhaps do yoga). But alas, knowing that writing is an intentionally slow process doesn't alleviate the frustration I still feel when I write sometimes. For some reason understanding that if I wrote how I want to write I most likely wouldn't find writing a fruitful exercise doesn't alleviate the sense of jealousy I feel when I read an excellent book or article.