Writing Quandry

I’m feeling stumped more frequently about writing. I have started several entries, meandered on in linguistic yet self-indulgent feats, come to an awareness that was crucial for me, then realized I can’t possibly post what I wrote because it’s of no benefit to anyone else, and I am so done with that little exercise that even I don’t want to re-read it.

Sometimes I return to earlier writing, as if I’m gazing through old photographs. I marvel at a turn of a phrase, the way something perfectly caught what I needed so keenly to express. I hear my own voice and I respond with relief and joy – a resounding “Yes!” as if I, now as audience member, have finally found a speaker who speaks to me.

Other moments create a touch of nostalgia. “Look what I used to be like” – the awe and familiarity of seeing me and remembering me - but the Me who is doing the seeing and remembering feels simultaneously the same and a very different person from the Me I’m encountering. Just like with old pictures, I’m kinder to myself with a post-hoc analysis than I am in my original experience of my inner world.

I nod and smile sheepishly at other writing that seems facile and stale, like a child’s gift of a macaroni-and-glue Mother’s Day card. We happily indulge the spirit and intention of our little loved one, the effort is so quaint and cute and it must be the thought that counts because what on earth can you really do with this thing? It’s not going to hold up over time no matter where you hang it – the construction paper will fade and the damned macaroni will never rot or disintegrate even after it’s been on your refrigerator door for months, but it absolutely cannot go into the attic or garage with the other things you don’t have the heart to throw away because not even a mother’s indulgence will outweigh rationality when it comes to the unwillingness to tempt critters and insects (who you prefer not to think about because there’s no sleep that will come if you acknowledge who else is living under your roof) but know will find their way specifically to the box marked “Kindergarten” and then what will you have.

A friend gave me a recent magazine with a section devoted to writing, opening up windows to how others experience writing. One author addressed the inherent conundrum of writing as a spiritual practice, which is dictated by three rules:
1. Don’t write what you know.
2. You can’t write what you don’t know.
3. You must write.

We must start by writing what we know, because it’s the only way to get to something new. In his words:

“So go ahead, and write what you know and keep at it until you at last realize you don’t know much and what you do know is terrifyingly trite and stupefyingly boring.”

“Keep writing no matter what comes up. Eventually you will find something in that writing. At first, what you find will be comforting. Throw that stuff away. Keep writing. Eventually you will find something that is deeply, disturbingly troubling.”

“So write simply to write. It’s a discipline. Sometimes what I write becomes part of something I publish, but publishing is never the goal. Writing is the goal. The journey is its own reward; arriving is just a by-product of placing one foot, one word, after another.”

I am, apparently, in great company. My writing quandary puts me right smack dab where others have been. The more I write, the less I have to offer up to others. The more I write, the less I know. I don’t even know exactly why I’m writing. But I am.

It feels as if I’m writing because it’s as essential to feed the expressive/ linguistic/connective “tissue” of my being, the way I feed actual organs, muscles and bones – food, exercise, vitamins, how could I not attend to the body? Perhaps continual attention and focus inward is not really navel-gazing, but a convoluted entry point to something outside ourselves. Maybe I’m writing to encounter that which is so much greater than me. Or maybe I’m navel-gazing and only pretending to be doing something grander.

To date, this is what I know, and this is what I don’t know.

This is the Me I send out into the world, to my friends and loved ones, the people I work with, my neighbors, the people who engage with me in small encounters throughout the day. And this is the Me I send out, my own macaroni-and-glue offering, to that which is so large and incomprehensible but perhaps will accept it with grace and indulgence.


Writing rules and quotes are from Standing barefoot before God: The agony and ecstasy of writing as a spiritual practice. Rabbi Rami, © Ode Magazine USA, Inc., October, 2010, pp. 40-41.