Last August, Frank suggested I write an editorial for the online magazine. You might notice I am running slightly behind schedule. I will spare you the excuses about being busy. We are all busy. Writing, I have been told, is largely a matter of stealing time.
As a student of writing, I get a lot of advice. One of my mentors says he takes writing seriously and expects his students to do the same. I beg to differ. Global warming is serious. Cancer is serious. War and pestilence and disease. Poverty and hunger. Birth and death, love and hate, thought and action. Frankly, writing, when compared to other things we can do to occupy our time -- feed the hungry, save the whales, find a cure for AIDS -- stacks up as rather a frivolous activity, falling at a spot in the continuum of importance somewhere above cutting the grass but below walking the dog. If I never write another word, the world will not be adversely affected, and if I dedicate the rest of my life to writing great truths, the world will yawn and go on, and for the most part, not be a better place because of it.
Writing is rather a selfish, and certainly self-centered activity. It is what I do for me, when my responsibilities to others are done. It is something I have always done and probably always will do, a part of me like breathing, eating, sleeping and getting laid. Like those things, it is worth making time for, but also like those things, it has its limits. Mainly, I do it because it's there.
I used to write all the time even though I was doing other things simultaneously. I would write on napkins and envelopes, my hand if necessary. I wrote on the bus, at work, on the toilet, walking down the street, everywhere and anywhere I went. Maybe I was using writing as an escape, or maybe I just had more energy then. At any rate, I have slowed down. I am less obsessive now, more disciplined perhaps, maybe less inspired. Perhaps I just have too many other things fighting for my attention. Or maybe I'm just tired. I like to think that though my writing has significantly dropped off in quantity, it has improved in quality, that though I am producing less material, I am mainly producing less garbage and have become more focused, efficient and economical in my writing. I don't know if this is true, but it sounds good.
All in all, writing, like life, is far too ridiculous too be taken seriously. Still, I would be remiss to deny that it has its serious side. The Bible, Das Kapital and The Origin of the Species have had enormous impact on human history and thought. Wars have been fought and governments have fallen over words. And that coverless, yellowed, marked-up copy of Leaves of Grass on my bookshelf, though I haven't actually read it for years, is an integral, internalized part of the way I think and feel and approach life, the Universe and myself every day.
So, what's the point of this editorial, you ask. I guess what I'm saying is go steal some time. Write something. Send it to me and I'll post it in cyberspace for the world to read. Have a little fun while you're at it, and don't knock yourself out trying to analyze what you do. Maybe as I pursue my studies further, I will discover some great wisdom and come to take it more seriously. For now, the best advice I have heard and can pass along comes from Lillian Hellman: "Don't listen to writers talking about writing or themselves."
The Readers Respond:
I liked your piece about the relative meaning of writing and the Lillian
Hellman quote , but I would like to refer you to The Animal in the Bush
-- Poems on Poetry by David Ignatow (Slow Loris Press, 1977) which I
read just today. Possibly you would like to know that his views from 20
years ago seem totally modern and current. By the way, we are trying to
verify that Mr Ignatow died about 11/19/97. I certainly hope that my
information is incorrect. My e-mail is:
tpq@city-net.com
Your message is on the whole, refreshing.
Frank Correnti
1-19-98
