Meditation on writing

Laura & I often read books aloud to each other, taking turns with each chapter and discussing how the work inspires us. Currently we are reading Writing Down the Bones, which has prompted us to write more and to start a writer's group.

I've been trying to journal daily in my hard copy journal, and I've finally got some good stuff cropping up there. Here's an entry I'm transcribing from this morning.

What business do I have writing? I am no writer.

I am a thinker, a dreamer, and artist who forgot to paint, a hack designer. I am no writer, just someone who writes. A writer can shit out books that are more colorful than your best dreams. A writer can find the hidden thread of wisdom that binds us all to one great mysterious story. A writer teaches us about ourselves by telling a story that is really a mirror or a lost artifact -- some piece of ourselves lost long ago. I am no writer.

A writer can write about anything; can bullshit her way through articles on closet curtains and the top ten ways to bring your soul back to life. I have knowledge, sure, but I am no writer.

A writer has finished a book, has published it, and has had people buy it and read it. I can write for two pages and my words freeze up. I am no writer.

Am I?

I recall essays written in middle school, in college, always about art and always with high praise, high marks. Write what you know.

I remember articles written for our camp newsletter and how easily the words would come come to me describing complex bits of occultism. I recall the book I am working on, how Athena's words flowed through me into my laptop computer, flowery and evocative.

"But I didn't write that" I protest. Those were the words of a Goddess moving me to record them. Just as I do not write the words here, rather I free them from this page where they already exist with the scratching of my pen. I am no writer.

The value of my words is for myself alone. There is no grace in it. No holy wisdom to impart. No eternal story song that I sing like a bard of old. Only empty reflections and musings on my imperfect mind, its wheeling cogs, its steam-driven sighs. I am no writer.

I am a hack journalist of my own life, a chronicler of emotions, shades, moods. An artist in chiaroscuro. An artist who forgot to paint. Who writes instead. But I am no writer.

Reposted from LiveJournal Sep. 23rd, 2009