On Writing...and I don't mean the Stephen King memoirs.

At times I look at this thing and hate myself a little, for it, for various reasons. One of them is this:

I use this pretty much just as a space to jot down random thoughts, to work out on paper things that swim around my head til I can't see straight for all the extra noise. I like it because it's logged online and I'll never accidentally delete the file or forget to save it properly. I like it because I don't have to stress about the quality of writing that goes down here--it's just thoughts, and that's all.

Except that's not what it should be. I love finding simple ways of putting thoughts, of working them out in a way that makes sense to me. I like breaking down thoughts and putting them into words that everyone else can understand. And I like writing in a style that is more, "This is what I mean, I think, does it make sense to you?" than the "I am pretentiously condescending to explain this to you" vibe that I feel like my more formal writing tends to unintentionally convey. (I have a mortal fear of being pretentious. And of being seen as pretentious.) Yet, I've been cheating. I say that I'm trying to put my thoughts into writing that is easily accessible, and perhaps to some extent I am doing that, but at the same time, I'm just being lazy. I don't try to write well. I forgo all attempts at lyricism, which I love; I don't bother editing at all, really; I let myself ramble instead of trying to be concise. My poor diction betrays my weak vocabulary, and my imagery and figurative language? Practically nonexistent.

I like writing. I like to write. But I don't work at it. And I mean, while Kerouac's Belief and Technique for Modern Prose has its strong points, it doesn't work for a lot of people because, well, Kerouac was brilliant. He could sit down at a typewriter and just let the words flow from him like music. He could command language in a way most people can't. For most people, it takes hard work, dedication, and practice to become a strong writer and develop a personal style. I need to do that.

I also think being a great writer requires experience and exposure. It means reading more, and reading different forms and genres and styles and writers. It means listening to a wider variety of music (despite my post on pop music) and absorbing the rhythms and beats and cadences and melodies. It means looking at paintings and photographs and seeing the textures and angles and perceptions and lighting and color. It means reading and watching plays and hearing the dialogue and seeing the body language among the actors as they interact. It means watching films and seeing all of this combined with even more layers of personal interpretation on the audience's end. It means going out and being around people, talking to them, and Andy-Warhol style observing them and listening to them and being interested in them, because to me, humanity is the essence of writing and all other forms of expression.

Thus, my latest resolve is to try to improve and grow as a writer through these posts. Though I'm sure many of them will still end up being ramblings and musings of random thoughts, I am going to try to dedicate at least some time to doing that better. To being better.