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Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Why do you write? (Part 2...)


People always, always say that language has limitations.

I've never disagreed more.

For me, language has never had any limitations. Every emotion, no matter how strange or obscure or powerful, can be described through words. It might take hundreds of lines of poetry, or perhaps a saga, but nonetheless, it can be done. One just has to know how to use the language in a way that conveys the nuances or sets a tone that will make your frequency resonate on the same frequency of the reader.

Which means you have to feel what you write.
When I say 'feel,' I mean it in the most profound sense of the term. It doesn't matter what you're writing. You have to strip down all your inhibitions to write. Everything that eventually comes out of your fingertips should first make its way through every bone in your body. You need to feel an adrenaline rush when you write, feel your mind tracing every word on the paper.

You need to feel the frustration of trying to arrange and rearrange your words so you can fine-tune to that perfect frequency.
And when you've achieved that perfection, you should feel drained, emotionally and mentally and physically, as if you've just run a 5K through a tornado.
Drained, but ready to do it again.

And when your readers read your writing and realize instantly that they feel the exact feeling you're conveying, then you know you've succeeded.

I think I write because it's a high. Because it's a challenge.
Because I want to see if I ever hit the barrier between words and emotions, and if I do, I want to tear them down.

4 comments:

  1. That is so true. I think the best authors/writers are the ones who write from personal experiences, and things that have happened to them.

    I never really thought about how language really isn't limited... I always get discouraged when writing starts becoming too long for something. But who says we have to put a limit on it? I guess that's really where the writing for yourself really comes into play...

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  2. somehow, this post doesn't seem to be logically consistent with the last one you made... comments?

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  3. Er, you're going to have to be more specific. I don't see any inconsistencies....

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  4. if some people cannot enjoy poetry, is that a limitation of language? is that the fault of the poet? of the reader?

    and how do we know?

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