Writing about…Writing
If there’s one thing that seems to happen more frequently in the world of writing, perhaps more than in any other field or pursuit — it is the copious amount of meta-writing that takes place.
Writing about writing.
But perhaps that is simply an illusion; since when we read we are ingesting the product of writing and it seems to be more synchronized than it really is.
If I wrote, for example, about the violin, or about practicing the violin, it is a separate action to write about practicing the violin than it is to practice the violin. Obviously.
But to sit and write about writing is the same action as it is to practice writing. Or is it?
Now I’ve confused myself.
There are certainly books out there about writing. Strunk & White’s Elements of Style, Steven Pinker’s The Sense of Style, to name a couple.
And are there subcategories of meta-writing?
Like “How to Write For _____ (insert blank.)”
It is different. There are books and articles about the craft of writing.
And then there are articles (and maybe fewer books) about writing for a certain publication, or journalism, or to make X amount of dollars in Y amount of time.
It’s easy to mistake writing about writing for actually writing for writing’s sake. And maybe I am biased, but to write; to really write is to do more than put words on paper and hope they make you a living. Or make you famous.
To write is to extricate one’s thoughts, emotions, and opinions, weave them together, and make art out of them. So that those reading are moved by it. Either to anger or tears. Or both.
Preferably both.
But they could all, in the end, be the same.
Do people still enjoy reading Austen, Dickens, and Eliot? I think they do.
Do people still read Orwell, Kerouac, and Steinbeck? Yes.
Do people need to read these books in order to write well? Not necessarily.
It does seem to be true that people are writing more, despite claims laid stating that the generation growing up in Internet ubiquity have forgotten how to communicate via the written word.
In a New York Times article titled “A New Literacy,” written by Thessaly La Force, she writes about the work of Andrea Lunsford, who studied the papers of almost fifteen thousand undergraduates and determined that we are in fact experiencing a form of literacy revolution; despite the advent of texting, email, and the like.
It may be different than what we consider “orthodox” literature, but it is still taking words and using them to communicate ideas, thoughts, and opinions.
With more writing on the “market” so to speak, several things may happen.
Taking into account the nature of writing, one realizes that since anyone can self-publish or blog (myself for example) there is no stopping the amount of writing that hits the Internet.
However, the volume of writing that is out there is not the same as the writing that is actually being consumed, considered, shared, and reacted to.
This is the writing that has “sold” so to speak. Anyone can start a business; but do their products or services actually sell?
So in order to become a more viable writer, sometimes we turn to meta-writing. Like what I am doing now.
But I also think it is key to not stay in that niche. Not to continually write click-bait that draws in the unwitting masses wanting to monetize their time spent at the keyboard.
Write first for the art of writing. To become exceptional at putting words together to inspire, anger, or move people to change how they think or be called to action. Write because you have something to say that is important (at least to you) and you want to communicate it to others.
That’s my goal. And I certainly invite your thoughts and criticism.
