On Writing, Authorship and Sacred Words
[image error]Lisabet Sarai, a writer for whom I have deep admiration, just finished blogging at the ERWA Blog on her experience of revising her novel to suit a publisher’s imprint. ‘Negotiation‘ is a great post worth reading. Most especially if you want to see the process of writing oneself an absolution. I don’t say that cattily or in any derogatory way; I think writers are always in a process of a negotiation between what they perceive to be their authentic voice and what the marketplace demands. Lisabet concludes by reminding herself, and us, that all the angst she experienced through the editorial process was for nothing. How silly to take one’s writing so seriously. “I don’t view my words as sacred.”
On the very same day, Big Ed posted a piece on self-censorship. He offers an examination of why writers do it and why he has done it and concludes, ultimately, that for him it is about the fear that he will not be able to communicate his ideas clearly enough to his readers. That he’s not a good enough writer to get the depth of what he’s trying to get across.
Both of these posts are really about what writers believe they ‘owe’ their readers.
I’d like to look at the mirror side of this and ask what a writer owes themselves. Because I don’t believe, as Lisabet does, that I owe my reader the story they expect. If anything, I believe I owe them the opposite. I owe them what they don’t expect. Nor to I agree with Ed that prowess in writing is the faithful transmission of the ideas in my brain to the readers. From what I understand of the reading process, I don’t think it’s possible and, if it were, I would not think it was desirable.
Lisabet’s statement about her words not be sacred forced me to ask the question: if your words aren’t sacred, then what is? Because - and I know this will sound incredibly egotistical – I DO think my words are sacred. If anything about me is sacred, it’s my words. I don’t expect readers or publishers or editors to feel the same way, but I must.
I have no children. My words are all that will survive me. They are sacred to me. That doesn’t mean every word I write is inviolate, or that I couldn’t benefit from a good, stiff edit, but if my words are quotidian and profane, then why write them at all? If I don’t think they’re sacred, why would I ever strive to improve them?
It has become normative for us to consume writing like we consume everything else. It’s a product. You should get what you expect. You should be delivered what you want. You should and can return it if it doesn’t meet your expectations. We have turned fiction into just another consumer product, and because of that, our relationship with it has changed forever. This generation will never feel challenged or privileged or awed by what they read anymore than they will feel challenged or privileged or awed by a pair of sneakers or meal. And that is sad.
It’s a world I choose not to step into. It’s a game I will not play. It’s a reality I will ignore. Because I will not reduce my relationship with words and the stories they constitute – mine, or those of another – to a commodity. My words are sacred to me. More times than I can count, I have felt that the words of other writers were sacred, too.
If I don’t believe my words are important, special, worthy…then how can I ever hope a reader will receive them that way and join in the pleasure of participating in the meaning-making process with me?
