Impudent Hackese: On Writing

I don’t know what I’m going to write because I haven’t written it yet.

Still.

Every great writer has written on writing, and said probably everything that needs to be said. Yet impudent hacks like myself continue to try to muscle in on their territory. Why? Because we’re impudent hacks. We think we have something to add, something fresh and vital. And perhaps we do. Usually though it’s the same old drivel, variations and permutations of impudent hackese, the kind of writing that would never see the light of day if it weren’t for cyberspace. So without further ado, here’s my nickel’s worth (adjusting for inflation and gradual eradication of the penny).

Writing is an exercise that seems simple and straightforward, but is actually a collaboration of various disciplines. First and foremost, writing is a literary endeavour. Without a fair grasp of the history or trends or rules of the written word, good luck. Although many a piece of popular writing has been perpetrated by, well, illiterates (see, for example, L. Ron Hubbard).

Second, writing is a communicative endeavour. Not only must a writer have something to communicate, but also an interesting angle from which to communicate it. Not to mention an audience to receive the communication. Ideally the audience is delighted. Occasionally though the audience dismisses the writer’s work as experimental.

Third, writing is an exercise in observation. Look around, notice details. Situations. Personalities. Responses. A and B come together to produce X. Notice it all and steal mercilessly. Take whatever serves your literary purpose, forget the rest, or file it for possibly later. Appropriate reality, translate it into words and communications.

Writing also delves into psychology. People, their motivations and ecstasies and disappointments, how the psychologies of character shape and intersect plot to advance theme. Main characters, secondary characters, even the ornamental bit player. That fleeting pedestrian’s solitary line of dialogue should evoke at least some sort of cultural dimension, some sort of psychological dimension, some sort of pathological dimension, some sort of dimension. Otherwise what’s the point of the ornament? Psychology is the human dimension within the words.

Writing is definitely a form of self-excavation, for those who use it as such. A way to orchestrate an internal dialogue. Story, poem, editorial, journal entry: all forms in which to explore personal boundaries. To give fair warning, one’s discoveries are not always pleasant. Though unpleasant discoveries make for entertaining and enlightening material. If you can summon the courage to honestly write about them, you’re halfway to being a writer.

Writing may also incorporate a degree of philosophy. The meaning of life, the meaning of meaning, the life of meaning, the Dalai Lama’s Swedish levitation coach’s existential dilemma . . . The larger questions are best addressed in print, and considering how dry and difficult some of these philosophy texts read (see, for example, Jacques Derrida), what better way to ingest philosophy than through a novel of fiction (see, for example, Ayn Rand)?

Finally, writing permits the insanity that is censored and censured in the minds of non-writers: the visualisation and actualisation of another reality, however divergent it may be from the “real” reality. This is where the real fun begins.

Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s time to chop off my pliskapoo.

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Writers in the throes of writing tend to isolate themselves, and sometimes forget their audience, which can produce disastrous consequences. When a writer becomes his or her own audience, exclusively and without exception, it’s time to call in the legbreakers.