My First Vent
Monday, June 8th, 2009

Surprise has been the common reaction to my work lately. Given the inevitable end to my marriage, as much as I would like, I can’t deny that my work has been impacted. Writing is thinking, as far as I have learned in the long hours I’ve spent holding hands in public and under the table with the written word. When something happens to you that changes the way you feel about people and the way the world comes to you – let’s call it perception – then it’s bound to show in your creative work.

I guess the nature of the posts here have always given away what’s going on in my life. If you know me or you’ve read material here before, you know writing is my way of dealing with what happens to me – and I usually do it with absolute honesty. I’ve done less and less writing the last few weeks. I’ve thought about taking this blog down, not for privacy sake, but because the subject matter might present me as depressed or distressed – a dark contrast to what I’ve written before. A fear I have is that a potential client would look through this material and a person who was once a talented writer has turned to venting online about all the shitty things that have happened to him. (Once there was a certain grace I expected of my work. As recent as three months ago, the word shit would have never appeared on this blog. Some posts might be considered shit by some. Who knows? But it wouldn’t have been me posting it outright. That in itself is a change.”

The discovery of my writing voice goes on. It’s a cycle that never ends. Last March, I felt my voice was the clearest. I felt I had truly reached the apex of my writing abilities. The three stories that I wrote for the “green” edition of Urban Times were the very best I’d turned in for them, and, in my opinion, that magazine had already been an outlet for my favorite work. But I tend to be the worst curator of my own material. The pieces I’d pull together for you to read might be chosen by the brevity in which they were churned out or the immense deadline stress that I faced in order to turn in something decent.

What can I say about the last several weeks? The last three months? Have they made me a better writer? Have my personal problems driven me to write? Should writing be a cathartic experience for me now, more than anything, or should I keep at it because it’s what I’ve done all along? Well, I’m not ready to answer that yet. I don’t want to be perceived as pandering to an audience for support or encouragement. I can only say what’s on my mind. You can see the evidence here. There have been fewer posts, but then again, there have been many pieces I chose not to post for personal reasons, and others that went nowhere after an hour or more trying to conjure little black curlique symbols onto blank paper.

I have identified a certain idealism in my past work. I once wrote about perfect kids, perfect mornings, perfect lessons, even the imperfections were perfect in the way that I wrote about them. Life is not perfect, nor is parenting. Part of me sees writing about the world as a single person a tremendous step back. I know that’s not realistic. I don’t mean single in terms of not married. I suppose solo is a better word. On my own. I had someone at home to bounce ideas off of and share thoughts, though that world started to close down a few years ago. When that happens, when two people can’t focus on one another the way they did, you wonder what it is about yourself that can’t keep a one-person audience interested in you, and then that translates to a follow-up thought: If I can’t keep a spouse interested, how am I going to do that with an audience? Do I even want an audience right now?

Writing-wise, I was happiest when it was just me and a journal spending an hour in the dining room, writing as fast as I could without thinking while the lamp light faded in the daylight … watching the birds fight around the feeder dangling over the bushes in the front window … listening to steel wheels taking the corner and barreling through the main intersection, the whistles blowing wild motion over the pasture ledges, tall dark-wood forests surrounding the suburban neighborhood.

This blog has caused me more than a few headaches. I think that when some people read this material, they can look at you in a different way, as though there is you and the WRITER you and if the two don’t match a notion that someone has of who you should be, then you are not being true to yourself. This happens even when writing fiction.

I remember hearing about a friend in college who stopped listening to David Bowie because she heard he wrote a song from a serial killer’s perspective. I’m sure Bowie isn’t a serial killer and that he did not condone the actions of the character he was writing about. My guess is that there might be some insights in seeing the world through a maniac’s eyes. I remember how shallow I thought it was when I heard this person had given up on the man as an artist.

How I choose to live my life and the way I write about the world are two separate situations. I write with a filter. The scenes are digested and the words come back out after significant thought. I try to arrange them in a way that shows what I took away from a scene, a situation, what someone said, what I thought I heard, and so on. In conversation, my reactions are my reactions. They aren’t likely to be as clearly stated as my outlook as a writer. Spontaneity? I use it in my work, but I can come back and refine it, reshape it.

I am rambling now, but that has been the biggest complaint about me lately. Me and the work don’t jive. I disagree. There’s me and there’s the work. They are together, and they are separate. The surprise is that the learning isn’t done. After all the filled notebooks and after all the books I’ve read, after all the living and sorrow, creativity and wishing, I might not even be halfway there. I love myself and how I see the world. When someone gives up on you, it makes the search for your voice that much more important.

Tags: Vent