DISCLAIMER: This piece of writing is experimental: it is not finished; it is a constant work in progress; it is slightly mortifying and maybe slightly horrifying; it may not even make sense. Read at your own risk.
I can say with absolute confidence that my theory of writing, and my more personal identity as a writer, has undergone a dramatic change this academic quarter. This is due to my intense study of writing in general that stems from this class and from my introduction as a consultant to the writing center, which required me to take a course that focused on how writing is taught in writing centers. This focus on writing has acted as a sort of obsessive frame of mind for me. I have found myself attempting (with varied success) to talk to my friends and peers about writing and often just contemplating it on my own.
Six months ago, I saw writing as a means to an end. I have always had an appreciation for writing, but that appreciation very rarely dipped below the surface. I was able to recognize ‘good[1]’ writing, and I had always excelled in my own academic writing; yet I was coasting. I rarely bothered to think about the writing process other than proofreading and editing, and, I am embarrassed to say, I never truly revised a paper until last month[2]. The intricacies of the writing process and of teaching writing were never of importance to me and I was fine correcting papers for grammatical errors, basic coherence and structure, citations, and formatting. Yet I was missing the whole point of writing.
In September, I wrote that writing “in its most basic form, is a technology that has allowed for an unprecedented level of continuous advancement for the human race. Yet I would argue that it is more than just words on a page. It is a form of communication that takes place in song, in art, in body language. Writing has become an integral cog in the mechanism of human existence” (link). Nearly two months later, I find that I am far removed from that original[3] theory of writing. And so, perhaps the most complete thought I have (at this moment) is that writing is a conversation and a social act. Writing begins as a thought. Yet to go back, to reflect, let’s look at what a thought is. For us as human beings, a thought takes place in words. So what we are experiencing as reflective thought is a form of internalized conversation. The next step in this conversation is to make it external. To do this is an intense effort, to verbalize to another human being, to converse and discuss and turn this thought into a more cohesive idea that another person can understand.
For me, this is the most important part of my writing process. I can think all day long and have short notes on my thoughts and think I am onto something big, but when I try to articulate it can fall apart. This is where writing becomes a social artifact. It is something that is developed within a conversation, though the context of this conversation can be fluid[4]. Though I believe, if you are lucky enough, the best ideas are those developed in a personal conversation[5]. I have gained the most through my conversation with a close friend where we can debate these issues for hours and talk through abstract ideas until they finally become concrete[6].
In my contemplation of writing – what it is, the process behind it, and the different forms it may take – I have delved into the ideas offered and explored within the postmodern genre. The three authors I have taken the most from this quarter are all masters of this genre, Kurt Vonnegut (Slaughterhouse-Five), Chuck Palahniuk (Survivor, Fight Club), Thomas Pynchon (The Crying of Lot 49), and David Foster Wallace (Infinite Jest)[7]. Postmodernism struggles to understand what mass media and technology are doing to our culture, and in this struggle these authors pull from other texts and rely heavily on social satire to critique and question the world around us. Jenkins, Ford, and Green explore the impact that technology is having on our society as a whole and many of the concepts in the novel are satirized in these postmodern texts. DFW, besides creating some of the most phenomenal works of fiction in the 20th century, follows in Didion’s footsteps with his creative non-fiction essays. Consider the Lobster and Authority and American Usage are two of his essays that are now commonly found in college classrooms around the country. These authors are not just incredible writers, they are philosophers in the continuous and ongoing conversation that is attempting to make sense of humanity.
Writing is more than just words on a page, and it is more than just printing out an assignment for class. Since the invention of writing, and the evolutionary process that has deviated from oral cultures and practices, these conversations span generations and allow for a more thorough and globalized perspective into these issues. What these postmodern texts are really getting at and trying to understand is what it means to be a human today. We are surrounded by technology and we are surrounded by people, but we have never been more isolated. Our world is changing at an astonishing rate that we cannot hope to keep up with. There are new trends every day and if you fall behind then you are ostracized from our culture[8].
I now believe that writing is not just words on a page with an intent to communicate. It is a conversation, an act of reflection, and a social artifact and process. David Foster Wallace said that ‘fiction’s about what it is to be a fucking human being,’ but I would add[9] that writing is what makes us human. It is a constant act of reflection, of going back. It is a primarily recursive process that can define us if we let it. The more I read ‘good’ writing (such as DFW, Joan Didion, Chuck Palahniuk) the more I realize that the ‘good’ writing is about being human. It is articulating the struggles we face on a daily basis and attempting to put that into some sort of context. This can take the form of fiction, of creative fiction, of an essay, of a scientific research paper. These are all attempts to take something from the world and make sense of it. It is reflective. It is looking back. It is about what it is to be a fucking human being in the chaos of today.
[1] Good writing is a term that has always bothered me. To me, good writing is not about grammar or structure or any of the prescribed uses of syntax and diction. Good writing is a good idea. While it can be incredibly pleasant to read pretty sentences and complex sentences and experimental sentences, the ideas are what stays with me.
[2] A part of me still believes I have not fully revised a paper. There is a notion, perhaps that is not fully realized yet, that thinks a revised paper should look very little like the rough draft. There was a reading I did recently for a class and the author described her experience of having a professor go through her Master’s Thesis and completely change it. She simply watched as he took it apart. Yet she wasn’t upset or offended, she was grateful that someone finally showed her how to write and revise. Simply seeing comments and attempting to make acceptable changes and hope that your writing has improved to meet some abstruse standard is incredibly frustrating. I am extremely envious of that experience.
[3] When I say original, I am referring to this ‘theory of writing’ as my first coherent lets-put-this-on-the-page-and-publish-it-on-my-blog idea, but this idea is hardly original. I believe I was pulling quite a bit from Plato’s Phaedrus and his own idea that writing was a technology that would destroy true knowledge, an issue I now think is exacerbated by the advent of the Internet and of modern technology. Yet this is a topic that is deserving of its own paper and I won’t bore you with it here.
[4] A conversation may not be with another person in the form of speech. It can be through social media, you can post an idea and have anyone or everyone respond. You can email a friend or post on a random or relevant blog or article or picture or Wikipedia. It can also be reading whatever on what you are thinking about to gain perspective and other ideas. Writing is a long history of thought and response and thought and response. Writing simply is conversation.
[5] Yet I have this abstract idea that talking about writing is so wonderfully redundant. So if it is redundant, then is talking about writing the definition of reflection?
[6] Or not, sometimes they become so abstract they just disintegrate, and that’s OK too.
[7] This should not come as a surprise at this point, but all of these authors are in a conversation with each other! Chuck Palahniuk and DFW cite Kurt Vonnegut as a major influence, DFW cites Thomas Pynchon, and Thomas Pynchon and everyone else on this list cites James Joyce. These authors, without exception, are looking at the media and our culture and pointing out its flaws in the form of fiction.
[8] I realize that this statement may seem melodramatic, but hopefully the terrifying truth behind this statement comes through.
[9] And this is an act of heresy on my part since DFW is my writing hero, I mean check out these footnotes!
