avoiding the shoulds
I am so sorry but this is going to be another one about writing
Once again I spend many hours over a draft only to abandon it upon looking at it with some detachment. I have this “fix idea” that I should write about the ordinary more, but then I fail miserably to produce anything interesting and am reminded of how much more I have to learn. This month I’ve learned that shoulds are a red flag when it comes to writing and that just relaxing usually produces better results.
I admire people who can turn the ordinary into something magical, but I am aware that this takes a lot of skill and I’m just not there yet. Something kills the joy of it and I think that’s happening because I come at it with this preconceived notion of what I should write about. I pick a theme and then try to find something interesting to say about it. Like I’m in high school again. And then I wonder how I can’t find the energy to write something good.
That saying from “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”, how in order to draw a perfect painting you need to become perfect and then draw naturally keeps coming back to me. I can’t brute force it. My mind has to be in a playful state.1 To risk sounding like Marie Kondo: following and listening to the feeling of joy is a useful practice and drafts that don’t evoke that feeling need to be abandoned.
But it’s difficult to come to that state after a day full of work and obligations when my mind is pretty worn. I complain. And yet, writing is magnificent when the energy flows, “without hope and without despair”. When it doesn’t, it’s like torture, and I end up asking myself: “Why do I subject myself voluntarily to this?”. Why do I keep doing it in this precious free time I have in a day?
That is to say that despite it looking very easy to do, it’s difficult to do well. And I don’t think anyone except beginners would fall into the trap of considering it easy. There are so many traps to fall into and sometimes it feels like walking a tight rope where the end goal is enveloped in fog. That’s another reason I don’t like choosing a topic to write about and why that never produces anything interesting. It feels like writing a shopping list where the items are corny arguments I invent just because they support the main theme instead of letting the writing take me step by step on that tight rope to an uncertain end.
Knowing this, I sometimes get excited reading other blog posts written in this manner and noticing the little parkour-like jumps. Never knowing where the next paragraph will go. Never knowing how the author is going to jump from one sentence to the next. Some would accuse this style of writing of meandering but to me that’s what’s interesting about the writing. I want to be taken on a ride and not just circle around a single topic with one supporting argument after the next. And since I am looking for that in the world, I want to try to create more of that in the world, although I’m not always successful. I want to only send you things I would like to read.
And what I’ve learned from this abandoned draft is that sometimes pursuing beautiful writing too much can ruin everything. The beauty kills the personality in a way. Like with photography, I think editing can be overdone and result in kitsch. I edit myself out of my own writing in order to sound more sophisticated than I really am. The truth is, I’m not extremely sophisticated, so I find this disingenuous. I don’t try to “be honest”, but “avoid being dishonest”. Not Dostoevsky: “Above all, be honest.” Dostoevsky: “Above all, don’t lie to yourself.”
The interesting thing about “The Brothers Karamazov” is that the prose is not particularly beautiful. No, you won’t find the colorful calm scenery or the pleasant hypnotizing rhythm in his sentences. And yet, I think it’s the best novel ever written. In a way all of that is surface-level, pure pursuit of aesthetics, while the relentless pursuit of truth, a trait so obvious in this novel, is what makes it truly beautiful.
Henrik Karlsson writes about this in his latest blog post (which inspired yours truly to write this one):
What’s odd about you is what’s interesting. Work hard, and you can write like everyone else in your genre—but the result will never be as rich as the texture of your own personality. So don’t think too much about how it’s supposed to be done, what others are doing, or what the conventions demand. Just try to amuse yourself.
Hrvoje, I enjoyed reading this; thank you. It speaks to something ~ the way we feel lost when we are heading somewhere new. I didn't realize this, until I read your piece. And yet, that makes perfect sense, doesn't it? Heading somewhere new ~ in a writing piece, in a location, in a new part of the world or town, is foreign, and thus confusing. And so, creative work has this in it. Cool