I was supposed to spend the summer writing. Crafting and forming and tearing apart and writing, writing, writing. I’ve done none of that. Well, nothing serious. Nothing that I would actually show anyone than a small cluster of people who would understand why I had to do it in the first place.
It doesn’t happen often but sometimes I pick up a book and begin reading it and I am soared up to dizzying heights all full of anxious fingers and a need to just write. I think one of the biggest struggles any writer has is finding her/his own voice. You write over and over again, you put words together and take them apart, you experiment and you read copiously and you ingest different things and you begin to pull from people whose voice appeals to you. Every writer’s voice is unique but is shaped and influenced by outside forces, by other voices. I find myself mimicking some writers, picking up their sentence flow, their rhythm, their structure and then blending it all together with what I already have.
Admittedly, I read very little. This is probably my biggest character flaw. I used to read a lot; I went through books like they were food. Now I am bored easily or I become too tired or my mind wanders or the television/internet is more mindless and easy. I really aim to rectify this. But right now I’m reading a very good book; the author has one of those voices. The kind that wraps around me and makes all the crazy short chopped up thoughts suddenly sensible and logical.
The Late Hector Kipling by David Thewlis. I will openly admit that I only started reading this book because I like DT. I like him a lot. He’s smart and sexy and tall and from northern England where all the British boys worth liking are from and when I’d found he’d written a book, I got kind of dizzy and weak in the knees. And also worried that it might not be a very good book. It’s a very good book. Worries are unfounded. The brilliance of the book makes me want to read it on the bus, which I cannot do because it will make me quite ill, so you know it must be good. (I’ve yet to actually subject myself to motion sickness for this book. My apologies, Mr. Thewlis, but no matter how elegant and enchanting your prose, I will not sacrifice my physical health. I have, however, read it while walking to the bus.)
I tend to prefer writing as I think – in choppy, broken sentences and asides and random observations and quiet dark rages and brilliant euphoria. Stream-of-consciousness is not that easy because you must be conscious of your lack of consciousness, so it is difficult to keep from swinging your thoughts from one subject to another or to keep from pressing influence into your thoughts.
There was an episode of Grey’s Anatomy where a man ate his novel. Sometimes I feel that way but not about my own writing. I want to eat the novels written by others because I want the words to become part of my blood stream. I want to absorb everything down to the last punctuation mark. I want to eat The Late Hector Kipling because it, like so much Kerouac’s work, makes sense and I don’t want to lose this feeling of thinking there are people who see the world from behind a different type of veil.
I haven’t found my voice yet because I remain unabused of the notion that there are certain rules I must follow. I am afraid of letting my voice go, letting it sing, and having everyone point and laugh at how rough and cracked and off-key it is.
