Thursday 12/16, 11:00 PM

I am writing an essay at the moment, but I just wanted to take a second to say that I LOVE WRITING. It doesn't make sense; I am doing something that I should be hating—I am at the library at 11:00 at night, re-writing the introduction to a 10-page research paper the entirety of which needs to be re-written. I am writing about an author I love, but of whose novels I have read none. The library closes at 2:00 in the morning. The paper is due tomorrow at 5:00, but I have a flight out of Utah to catch at 6:00, so I won’t be able to procrastinate to the last minute even if I wanted. I just completed the introduction (and by “completed” I mean that I said in my mind “Ok that’s enough for now”), and I have the glorious rest of the paper waiting in front me to be pieced together with white school glue and popsicle sticks—and I feel like I’m on ecstasy. I don’t understand why, but I honestly can’t get enough of it.

I should probably calm down. I think that good writers first need to get over writing about how wonderful they feel when they write before they can become good writers. It sucks to read about writing all the time. I bought a “Best Of” book of American essays from 2009, and a good third of them were written about writing. It was pathetic. Sure, they were good—most of them—but who wants to be reading about writing all the time? We know that you love writing. That’s why you’re a writer! Now tell us about something we don’t know. Tell us something interesting about the world we live in. Or at least articulate the things I already know but have never had the words to describe.

Okay, that’s been a good breather. It’s 11:06, and now I’ve got to plunge back into the ice-cold pool and get this done. But I just have to say, this is SO exhilarating!

Who Am I As A Writer

This was written as a response to a short reflexive question members of my English class and I were supposed answer in 250 words to finish off the semester. The question was: Who am I as a writer?

Who am I as a writer?  In order to answer that question, I first of all have to answer what it means to write.  Writing is organized thinking that also happens to be recorded.  My mind is constantly writing, but what it writes is constantly getting erased, since it’s not always written down.  Writing and writing things down, I think, are two very different things.  I think everyone is constantly going through the process of writing, whether they are aware of it or not.  It’s just that very few people actually get their writing down on paper, and even fewer go through all the effort of getting it published for everyone else to see and learn from their organized thinking.  

So, who am I as a writer—well, as a teacher of mine commented tonight, “Jacob, you just never stop thinking about things.”  While taken out of context that might seem like nothing short of a compliment, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t aimed in that sort of light—he seemed to say it as if with an unspoken but understood follow-up: “...And it gets in the way of things.”  I had to agree with him, and although my thinking may complicate things or bog things down from time to time, I love it, and it keeps me alive.  Writing is like a form of breathing for me, as cliche and melodramatic as that may sound, because breathing can turn into laughing, or sighing, or coughing—all very different experiences, but all resulting in some sort of a sense of relief.  So who am I as a writer?  Well, that’s sort of a dumb question.  I don’t think I need to answer it.

Writing for the Sake of Writing

I never really buy it when writers talk about writing for the sake of writing.  No one writes down words just to see the words being put down any more than they pour a glass of water just to see the water being poured.  There must be another reason—maybe the writer can't articulate it, but something is going on underneath.  I don't fully understand it myself, but I don't buy the explanation they usually give.  Writing is organized thinking that happens to also be recorded.  It is above the letters being formed on the paper that the action is really taking place, and later it is above the printed letters on the bounded pages that another action then takes place—which is why I also don't buy that readers ever read merely for the sake of reading.  Maybe they can't put words to it, but there is something else there—something happening that they enjoy.  But it's not the reading of the words on the paper.  

So what is it that's really happening?  When you find that out, please let me know.