9:53pm

It’s funny how the thoughts that visit to annoy you late at night can hardly cross your mind during the day. I often find myself lying rigid in bed, torn between getting up and smashing on my keyboard for a half hour, or taking deep breaths and trying to meditate myself to sleep like a bae once tried to teach me. Tonight I felt across the room for me’ trusty laptop.

My pestering thought is this: Why do people sometimes write and conceal their true meaning? So often I read blogs (actually, rarely, but on the occasion that I do) and feel as though the writer is trying to shape the thoughts of the reader through manipulation, rather than statement of fact or honesty. They try and tell you what to take out of their writing, rather than letting you derive the meaning for yourself. Sometimes, of course, they have one specific point that they are shaping for you to take away. But don’t you think part of the duty of a writer is to encourage others to think for themselves?

There’s no more powerful tool for connecting writer to reader as a stream of consciousness style. If I were in any kind of position to offer advice on writing (not saying that I am, but this is my blog so boo hoo to you), I would just say let it come. The writing I have received the best responses from has always been the pieces I have word-vomited out in two hours, my fingers on the keys struggling to keep up with the thoughts in my head, rather than the pieces I have toiled over for days, come back to, deleted and re-drafted.

Sometimes when I can’t sleep I end up naked, lying on my stomach, typing furiously at 1am (I’m nudie-typing now, whaddayathinkathat) and waking up to something I’m proud of. People are strange. We start the day like little flowers, closed off and self-protective, guarding our opinions and putting on clothing to shield us from the world. By the end of the day we’re more likely to be unbuttoning our collars and putting up our feet, showing our true colours, hugging our colleagues and saying the things we weren’t ready to at 9am. It’d be great if I was feeling brutally honest at 9am, and could schedule regular morning time to write, but the reality is that I rarely am.

The point is, if it takes you all day to be ready to ‘get real’, strike while the iron is hot. Say it if it needs saying, to yourself, or to whoever. If you need to write, write it while the honest thought-stream is there.

If you’re going to write, be brave, be real. Write like Jack Kerouac or Ernest Hemingway. Jack Kerouac makes me want to writeandbumarideinthebackofatruckanddrinkwhiskeyandmakeloveandLivejustLIVEbecause FUCK! It’s raw. You can feel his energy jumping off the page, just feel it, but no one can really tell you how you’re meant to feel about it. The beauty of it is you can feel whatever the fuck you want.

Write what you mean and state how you feel, no matter how mad or unimportant it might seem at another point in time, because right now, that feeling, or that thought is what is real to you. You needn’t share everything you write. I don’t. I share about 20% of what I write with anyone. I have a journal on my computer that I write thoughts, short stories, poems, opinions and anecdotes from my day. My only regret is that I hadn’t started this sooner; writing honestly for yourself is more important than your audience, in that it continues your momentum. (But also, what if I get dementia and forget EVERYTHING I’ve ever done?)

When you write, be true to yourself. Mean what you say but let others decide what it means for them (if you share what you write, regardless of whether its a letter to your partner, a card for your mum or an essay for your tutor). It might be a fleeting thought or a joke that you laugh at later for the wrong reasons, but so be it! That’s life, isn’t it! Life is laughing at your shit, someday in the future, and I’d rather laugh at some real, honest shit.

At the end of the day, I’d rather embrace a stream of consciousness style and write thirteen honest words that no one understands than a thousand intended to tell you what to think. I may have my word processor, but we all have thought-processors, and I know you can do that part all by your self.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now, an hour later, having satisfied my brain, sleep will come easy.