I think I struggle most with that. If you'd ever gotten the chance to look back and read over your past writings, doesn't it seem rather poxy, what you discover? Say... You've written something along the lines of:
She stared back at him, and breathed, "I'm not afraid".
It's that 'something along the lines of' that bugs me, because everything everyone's ever written is 'something along the lines of' something else already written. And suddenly, what formerly sounded unique and special to you rather becomes conventional, idealistic. No matter what the context, it's the same. Now, there will always be certain words that one must use if they were to write a short piece of fiction; words, or even phrases, like: "he stared in horror" or "my heart dropped" and "He whispered "I..."" you get it. I know you get it.
For lack of ability to then express oneself successfully without already sounding corny or even phony (damn English is getting to me. Just when I thought I could lay that subject in the grave, it comes back to haunt me. And already, how conventional do I sound? Exactly my point.), we then turn to subject matter. Suddenly, everything we've written about has already once been written about. We capture moments, significant, rare, dare I say, magical moments in our lives, and yet, what magic is there if we've already written or read about it a thousand times? What does a feeling really feel like, if we're so accustomed to it having placed our angle of it that way?
But... I do think that it is our flair that makes it innovative, new, fresh, different. Our spin on words, choice on lettering, (American and Australian - don't discriminate (: ), sentence structure. Everything that makes literary writing is at our disposal, and we can use them however we want. Most of the time, it's just easier to work with something previously done - the way I've adopted a liking for Mansfield's style, and thus have incorporated some of her writing flair into my writing (obviously not this one, but you know what I mean - the stories!), but at the thought of being innovative, being new, being fresh, and being different... I mean, isn't it alluring?
I don't know. I sometimes think that when I write, I'm the least my own... yet still, it is only me who really understands it all. We're used to writing universally, because not one person has experienced and responded to each and every circumstance, for example, as I have throughout my entire life.
I do realise this blog feels much like a waste of your time, and I do apologise for that, but I can't help it; I like to ponder. Thoughts like this, to me, are often more vibrant than the colourful language spouted out by talented writers. I don't proclaim that I do have talent here (on the contrary, one can see I clearly don't from my plain and bland use of english here), but sometimes it's just why I write about simple things that pull at the corners of my lips. The things that work themselves out, which required none of our doing... now isn't that magical?
LOL, Sarah.
1 comment:
i totally agree! if i were to write a novel, how could i NOT bore my readers when the writing style is pretty much the same.. that sucks. :(
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