Writing

Writing, my writing, is usually a solitary act, and there are so many pressures from everywhere. The piles of papers in my office are pressures. I have to write in my time for my reasons… I have to find myself writing, so to speak. I can write in community, but it’s a different kind of writing. The kind I’m wanting to do now, to return to, is writing that can’t be pushed in or governed by business of any sort. It has to be the defiant act of a young man luxuriating in the mentality of free time, time to throw the paint of words around, not so much to play as to try things, have fun, find his intensity, his passion, give it words to take shape, the mentality too of guiltlessly buying books and supplies as they may offer the least assistance or impetus or spurring, not pushing himself too hard, and feeling free to take seriously what he even dabbles with, like a boy in an open school, like a young man turned loose in the college/playground/theatre of his own mind, a young man driven to say what he is thinking, and be persuasive, and affect the world, and so coming of age. Then it has to be tempered and cultured by the grown man who wants to write stories, implying something finished, or not unfinished simply from being erratic and undisciplined. And then lastly, it must be shared with someone who is mated to his soul, shaped partly – intentionally – but not entirely by the knowledge that he will share it. And then it becomes a dialogue, coming out of solitude. At least, I think these things are true.April 2002