WRITING TO A STRANGER

In The Writer’s Almanac, one of my favorite source for blog topics, I recently read a birthday piece on the novelist and travel writer Pico Iyer who said: "The less conscious one is of being 'a writer,' the better the writing. And though reading is the best school of writing, school is the worst place for reading. Writing should ... be as spontaneous and urgent as a letter to a lover, or a message to a friend who has just lost a parent ... and writing is, in the end, that oddest of anomalies: an intimate letter to a stranger."

That’s exactly it! I’m writing my blog as a letter to a stranger. After a long pause in writing for our community magazine, a pause in which I took up blogging, I recently wrote a brief piece on Thomas Wolfe and his Look Homeward, Angel. I never could get into any of Wolfe’s lengthy novels, and so I’d never been interested in him at all. Seeing as how he was born just a few hours from here in Ashville, North Carolina, I thought I’d look into the topic when I saw it on the list of suggested future topics. In just a few hours I was able to turn out what I think is a nice piece.

How? I re-discovered that I could take a few pages of basic, dry information, from Wikipedia and a few North Carolina travel websites in this instance, and, with a bit of paraphrasing and some judicious juxtapositioning, turn them into a fairly interesting article. At least it’s interesting to me: all I want to know about Wolfe and his work in a nutshell, and as it relates to me and my neighbors. I don’t know the tastes of these relative strangers in my community, but I tried to make it something they’d like. I remembered that I’d done it before for things like Audubon, table forks, the opera, and the end of the American Revolutionary War. (If it wasn’t for the South, we Americans would all be British.) I sincerely hope the 'strangers' in my community will find the article interesting and not too dry.

I do know and love several of my regular blog readers – and you know who you are – but I certainly don’t know every one of you. That’s why I try to make my blog interesting to a stranger. I can’t be sure what background you have, what makes you chuckle, what makes you sit up and take notice. I write only about what interest me, of course, and I hope it interest you too.

ON WRITING AS A PERFORMANCE

February 24^th prompts me to do up an essay on writing. I’ve been at this blog, this compendium of personal essays, for well over a year now, and February 28^th marks the birthday of Michel de Montaigne, considered by many to be the father of the personal essay. Montaigne was born in 1533, during my favorite period of history, the Renaissance, in a wonderful part of France: Perigord.  Oo la la, think truffles, think wine, think foie gras. Montaigne is called the father of Modern Skepticism.  I’ll raise my glass to that – I am somewhat of a skeptic myself, and a curmudgeon to boot. The title of his huge volume of essays, “Essais”, translates literally as “Attempts”, and attempt is what writers do: attempt to teach, to entertain, and perhaps to sway the reader to a certain point of view.

The critic and writer Stephen Greenblatt said, "The first and perhaps the most important requirement for a successful writing performance — and writing is a performance, like singing an aria or dancing a jig — is to understand the nature of the occasion." I write as I hope I’d speak to you in person, and I always hope you enjoy the performance. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, though I always try to relate the essay to the occasion and the season.

We’ve a bunch of diacritical marks to go along with our written language, but they don’t always convey the exact nuance that speech would carry, nor can they convey the subtle facial or body movements that would accompany a live reading (nudge, nudge, wink, wink).

In a live reading I’d never have to use dashes or parenthesis or a semicolon; I’d not have to worry about my spelling or grammar, and long sentences like these wouldn’t be so obvious or difficult to follow.  I’ve always tried to be aware of using proper spelling, grammar, and punctuation, but after a while I just like to say “Nuts to that”.  My nephew is the force behind a popular blog on films. (Check the list of blogs I follow, you’ll know which one it is. Zen Hugs db.) Sometimes his spelling, grammar and punctuation set my teeth on edge – but then I realize that I do know what he’s saying, I do understand it perfectly, and enjoy it immensely, so why carp (or crap, anagrammatically speaking) about it.  But I digress…

...back to my topic: writing.  "Composition is a discipline; it forces us to think. If you want to 'get in touch with your feelings,' fine — talk to yourself; we all do. But, if you want to communicate with another thinking human being, get in touch with your thoughts. Put them in order; give them a purpose; use them to persuade, to instruct, to discover, to seduce. The secret way to do this is to write it down and then cut out the confusing parts."   A man I really admired, William Safire, journalist, author, a man of many words, wrote that. 

Well, “get in touch with your thoughts” – it’s evident that I’ve presented three other people’s thoughts here.  But they’ve so eloquently said what I wish I could have as I noodled around with this essay.  And as I noodled around with this essay I came upon these excellent rules for essayists:

·          Remember to never split an infinitive.*

·          The passive voice should never be used.

·          Do not put statements in the negative form.

·          Verbs have to agree with their subjects.

·          Proofread carefully to see if you words out.

·          If you reread your work, you can find on rereading a great deal of…**

*and do you know why we’re not supposed to split an infinitive? Because in Latin it was only one unsplitable word. But the rules of grammar are not backed up with any punitive governmental legislation, so whatever works works.

** …a great deal of “what was I thinking?” And, just what was I thinking? I suppose I was just making an attempt to suit an essay to the occasion of Montaigne’s birthday.

This essay excepted, (and you’d think it would be just the opposite) I attempt to “cut out the confusing parts” of what I write, and not ramble too much. Maybe I’m trying too hard. Now to get back to our birthday boy Montaigne, he said “The highest of wisdom is continual cheerfulness: such a state, like the region above the moon, is always clear and serene."  Curmudgeon that I am, I do always try to be cheerful.  I think it will help me live longer.