Iconoclastic

After having a rather blunt conversation with one of my brilliant male friends (who told me he thought my writing was ‘selling out’), I have been seriously questioning my need to write, my purpose. And yesterday, I was going through some books, when an oldie but goodie Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg fell open, and this is what I read:

Obsessions: Writers end up writing about their obsessions. Things that haunt them; things they can’t forget; stories they carry in their bodies waiting to be released.

I have my writing groups make lists of their obsessions so that they can see what they unconsciously (and consciously) spend their waking hours thinking about. After you write them down you can put them to good use. You have a list of things to write about. And your main obsessions have power; they are what you will come back to in your writing over and over again. And you’ll create new stories around the. So you might well give in to them. They probably take over your live whether you want them to or not, so you ought to get them to work for you.

There is a freedom in being a writer and writing. It is fulfilling your function. I used to think freedom meant doing whatever you want. It means knowing who you are, what you are supposed to be doing on this earth, and then simply doing it.

I sent a question out into the world, and the world sent me an answer. Too bad it’s not that easy in relationships! But it answered my questions.

I obsess about the relationships I have with other people – most specifically with men. And I write about it for two reasons: because I am making my obsession work for me, and because I find a simple freedom in fulfilling my function of sharing experience with others.

Natalie Goldberg also says:

We were here; we are human beings; this is how we lived. Let it be known, the earth passed before us. Our details are important. Otherwise, if they are not, we can drop a bomb and it doesn’t matter.

Here is a true example – the pen is mightier than the sword!

Here is a poem I wrote a couple of years ago, it sums up my feelings perfectly:

I write because each picture is worth a thousand words and I want to find them all.
I write because it is the safest way to revel myself, and not let people in.
I write to escape the darkness, to find the light.
I write so I can argue with myself, and not be insane.
I write to fall in love.
I write so somewhere good things happen to good people.
I write to be famous.
I write because I know everything, yet I know nothing at all.
I write because life is exciting, unfair, thrilling and devastating all in the same moment.
I write to document my experience “the name everyone gives to their mistakes.”
I write to learn.
I write to teach.
I write to find reality, and to distort it.
I write to explore.
I write to make people think.
I write to find understanding.
I write because there is so much emotion and I have to get it out somehow.
I write because it is intoxication.
I write for pleasure.
I write to release the pain.
I write so that people twenty years from now will know about today.
I write so adults understand children. I write so children never want to grown up.
I write to find myself, and then lose myself.
I write instead of cry.
I write to help make sense.
I write to confuse.
I write to escape reality.
I write because sometimes we have to run from what we know to find the truth!