The Writing Life!

Seems that may of us were published in The Writing Life. I thought it would be fun to hear thoughts/ideas on what we wrote. Hopefully it doesn't suck :p

Here's my non-fiction piece.

Writer's Block

I have yet to find my place in the writing world. At twenty, I assume this is normal. Write what you know is the mantra espoused by every writing teacher I have worked with. They don't seem to realize that what I know is greatly affected by what I do not know. An unfortunate thought to barter with when betting your livelihood on one-upping fellow writers in the eyes of a publisher or a professor.

Writing came to me by accident. During my freshman year of college, I wrote a five-page autobiographical essay for an English professor. I spent a total of an hour and change on the paper, lying my way through the uninteresting parts. In retrospect, I assume she wanted the paper to be 'true', but I was not yet privy to the rules and regulations of creative non-fiction. Upon the essay's return, I nonchalantly turned toward the expected meaty comments on the paper. I had always been a decent writer; my grammar was correct, and I was pretty sure my spell check worked, so I arrogantly assumed an A. The A, the Oscar of the academic world, was handed to me on a platter chiseled with more than a 'good job' or 'neat-o vocabulary choices'.

"This is the best student essay I have ever read."

The comment glared at me. I read it over and over again, relishing the slick red ink gracing my masterpiece. If it had lips, I would have kissed it. The professor had not just boosted my confidence, she had opened a door to furious ego masturbation: I was the best at something.

Several English literature and creative writing courses later, I am slowly coming to terms with the small chance that I am not, in fact, the best student essayist. I may get As on my work or win scholarships for especially poignant pieces, but I am by no means the best. Arrogance and self-absorbedness aside, I have been unwilling to take the plunge and fully accept this notion. Having counterfeited the confidence of my idols for so long, I found a spark of genuine self-assuredness in that comment. Granted, I took that confidence to the extreme—everyone makes mistakes. It didn't really hurt anyone but me in the end, though, because I focused so much on being Kerouac, Sedaris, Lewis, and Adams that my writing became a product of what I wanted to know, not what I knew.

When I look at the pieces I have written over the past four years, I sigh in relief. At least my writing is growing. The greatest fear of any artist is that their work will become stagnant and cliché; in this sense, I am lucky. I haven't experienced enough life to be shoved in a box, labeled, and sorted. All too often that's what happens with writers—they become a victim of their genre. I'd much rather float on a cloud of creative freedom, plucking through the idiosyncrasies of life and transplanting them to an eternal medium. If anything, I'm keeping a record of a grammar conscious twenty-something in the twenty-first century. That in itself should guarantee me a Pulitzer.