Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards. - Robert A. Heinlein
I was in a pub the other night (it happens. I was drinking Hoegaarden. I don’t think that helps). We were having a hugely satisfactory high-brow discussion on the way different languages shape the thought-processes and psychology of their practitioners, and the concomitant influences on history and politics (This was not just the beer talking. Languages spoken fluently by the three individuals in discussion, six. I’m bilingual. So bite me). And in the course of this, I’m sure deeply-tedious-to-onlookers conversation, I am pretty sure I mentioned the fact that I write [Attempt to write - Ed] twice, possibly three times [That WAS the beer talking - Ed] (No it wasn’t. I was trying to make a point about different ways of understanding poetic idiom… Oh, never mind).
And no one so much as batted an eyelid.
Possibly it was because they were all unnecessarily well-read graduates and used to writery types. Or possibly they couldn’t hear me clearly over the baying of young professionals at the bar. Nevertheless felt as if I had luckily gotten away with some social gaffe, such as managing to fart silently, or fake a convincing sneeze to cover an unstifleable yawn. I was far to busy yammering to think about it much at the time, of course, but I woke up at six am this morning. As you invariably do on a Sunday, rather than on a Thursday, when it might come in quite useful. I lay there and mulled. I am patently unable to shut up about the writing thing completely despite several quite soul-crushing incidents - I have posted before on the things people say to budding writers. Every time I am hijacked by my inner show-off [There is no inner show-off. Deal with it - Ed] I flinch, expecting to be ignored, belittled, questioned relentlessly, teased, or (somehow worse, because deep down I like it, and this gives me heartburn) hero-worshipped just a little bit. Why was I so relieved to have had my ‘I write, I do,’ remarks treated so casually? I know some writers who would have been lying awake at dawn indulging in a wailing and gnashing of teeth at it.
And then I saw it. I had been, for possibly the second or third time only in my life, taken seriously. I wrote. It was relevant to the discussion. I was not a freak or a show-off or a neurasthenic wreck, and because what I wrote wasn’t really relevant at the time, it wasn’t discussed. I had not taken over the conversation. Reed writes. So-and-so speaks four languages. Other-chap has travelled a great deal. All equally relevant. All taken seriously. No one even so much as glanced at the state of my fingernails [Bitten to the quick, by the way. Again - Ed].
I went back to sleep.
You write.
You write very well.
You are a writer.
I hope one day to have just a smidgeon of your flair for prose.
Left by Teuchter on July 23rd, 2006
You are way too self-deprecating, honey. Why do you do this?
And don’t dare ask me the same question!
I guess the bottom line is - why do you write?
To achieve some sort of acknowledgement? To sell a million?
Basically - you write. It seems to me that you write because you really can’t help doing otherwise. Desiring some sort of acknowledgement for that sounds perfectly normal to me.
Meanwhile, constantly referring to the ‘inner show-off’ is only a way of very unnecessarily putting yourself down.
Where would any of us be without the fabulous show-offs of the world? Eh?
Nowhere, that’s where. And you can quote me…
Meanwhile, please give yourself a break from time to time.
Left by azahar on July 23rd, 2006
I wish I’d been there for that discussion! It’s not something I know a great deal about, but I find linguistics very intriguing, and the ways in which language can affect one’s view of the world are really quite varied and surprising. Not just ‘missing’ or ‘extra’ vocabulary, but word order, word choice, inflection and so on.
Yes, you are indeed a writer. Good to have it be relevant. Singing is never relevant outside of rehearsal/performance!
Left by David B on July 23rd, 2006
I’ve often wondered if the fact that german is constructed like lego, with great long complex nouns concatenated out of simple elements and everthing got neatly in place before the verb is hammered home, might contribute to the proverbial germanic love of order and structure, not to mention their ability as engineers.
Keep writing, whatever you choose to call it.
AB
Left by AB on July 24th, 2006