Writing for Losers: A Diatribe

Opening Gambit
I'm sure there are more than three possible interpretations of the title I've given this post, but here are the ones I've thought of:

1. Writing (is) for Losers.
2. (We are) Writing for Losers
3. (What) Writing (is...) for Losers

I opt for the third interpretation, although the second one does have a bit of charm. There's a good reason I've adopted this frame of mind. I was reading a blog about how to become a better writer, and I think it mentioned something about email chains without the level of disdain I would have expected from a serious writer. I got out fast.

I think there are fundamental things people don't understand about writing, and this leads to such nuisances as writer's block and writing phobias.

How it Started
I think I must have searched the phrase "How to be a writer" or another of its incarnations, and the very  first thing on the internet was garbage. Clearly Google has trained some of its bots to identify and extract any post with numbered bullet points and to highlight them in like manner in the search engine results. The algorithm probably goes something like: 

// Find and print up to 7 bullet headings, skipping full paragraphs until the next bullet is encountered. 
for (n= counter)
locate (counter =1; counter =< 7, counter++);
fetch 
      {number and text until paragraph break
       cout << the same
end if ... something or other.
// Clearly I'm only in chapter 7 of my C++ textbook 
}
No one at Google thought to devise an algorithm that corrects for stupidity.


Lessons Learned from those Prominent Bullet Points
1. Clarity is for losers

Don't tell me to be clear about what I'm going to write before I do it, because for me writing is a thinking tool—an organon—that helps me get clear on what I already understand but don't realize that I do. I teach myself when I write. That means before I write, I have to acknowledge and embrace a certain level of ignorance.  The pen (or the keys) are like axes or machetes clearing a path through the jungle (jumble) that are my thoughts about a given topic.

This jumble usually occurs because I'm thinking everything at once. As I sit down to write it, I start somewhere, anywhere—in medias res, if you will—but the linearity required by the explanation forces me to lay things down one at a time, whether in front or in back, until things are sorted out. [Long sentence, yeah: Henry James is my hero.] The ability to go back and forth is important. Writing is an iterative and a recursive process. The actual act of doing it helps you understand how to do it, how to explain your topic, how to understand it yourself. It's like Heidegger said of mathematics in his little-known book What is a Thing?. It is "that about things which we already know." (It's a good book. Go check it out.)

2. Brevity is for Losers

Yeah, this is the age of microwaved everything, but I know that when I'm looking to understand a topic, I go for the most involved-looking explanation I can find. I read textbooks. I read Wikipedia, but only as a prelude to something more comprehensive. Because I know that once I get out the other side, I'll be a boss on the topic.

3. Stripping is for Hookers

Some people clearly sit down and write emails all day. I guess that's what counts as lengthy in the age of texting and tweets. And if that's all they're doing, no wonder simplicity is such an aspiration. Literally no complex thoughts pass must through their minds at any moment. Simpliciter. And I'm not one to knock organization methods, but isn't the point of writing to communicate, and do we communicate best by leaving things out? 

But I'm prevaricating, pussyfooting around the truth I want to tell.

The need to strip things down is the need to dumb things down. And whom are we writing for here? Not losers, I hope. If we filled up the internet with a bunch of stripped down text, where would the smart people go for information? Stripping is for people who don't know shit. I say to any writer worth her salt: bring the complexity and leave that skeletal stuff to the losers.

4. Happy Place, Loserville

I grant that this heading might be slightly cheesier than the idea of doing something as complex as writing (or any other artistic endeavor) from any kind of "happy place." What the hell is that supposed to mean anyway? [Face slap!] But, to be honest, it's no surprise that people who give such asinine advice don't say write from a position of knowledge or of intelligence. Because, of course, if you're stripping everything down and sacrificing thoroughness for brevity, you don't really need to know all that much. Sigh. Writing is complex; it requires perseverance and grit. Naturally you ought to have some passion for the thing you're writing about, but that passion leads you toward the difficult areas of your topic—of your craft—and sustains you precisely when the work requires sweat. And trust me: writing is work. So unless you're writing some Candyland shit, it's nothing but an insult to suggest doing it from any other position but one that combines knowledge, drive, and (artistic) integrity.

5. (Time) Limits are for Losers

This obviously goes along the lines of dumbing things down again. And, again, if you're not going to dig deep to extract (from your mind) the kernel of something intelligent, you really don't need a lot of time. The way I see it, annoying and constraining time limits are already sort of built into life: 24-hour days, eight-hour sleep cycles, perennial fatigue, attention spans. Why exacerbate it? Better to allocate more time to your writing and take it out of the time you spend daily doing things that make you stupid. Rather than limit yourself, you should give your writing "breathing" space—space to expand and become the almost unmanageable beast that only you can tame. That means being willing to sit and work until the problem is solved, the snag is loosened, the thread is unraveled—that is, until whatever needs doing is done. Putting an artificial limit on it will only strangle the process, cage your intelligence, and arrest the flow of the text.

6. WW__D?

We've reached a new low, ladies and gentlemen. Just when we thought things could be no dumber.  It was at this point that the text mentioned the chain email and made me recoil. It didn't say much else. (Funny how little it says in general. Funny how much stupidity can be packed into a few sparse sentences.) For this, too, was certainly stripped down and simplified. Bottom line is, you have no idea what your hero would say, and if you do, it's because they've already said it. It's your perspective that's missing from the universe of text (in this case, of email). Find out what's true of you—that's hard sometimes, but probably worth searching for. Be less lazy.

7. Decisive endings are for losers.

Honestly, open endings are much more interesting. But I guess some people wouldn't understand the charm that lies in feeling like you don't quite have a handle on everything: the satisfaction in knowing that the work is doing more than can be contained in one head or comprehended by one mind. It's the same feeling you have at the beginning of sitting down to write something you know in your gut is profound and interesting, but about which you don't know all details. Yet. The very unclarity, which we were told earlier to avoid, is rather what we should pursue. And sometimes it leaves loose ends. No matter. Your readers, who are as profound as you (i.e. not losers, few though they may be), will welcome open-ended material like that for their own ruminations. 

8. Email is for ... 

Well, just the very idea that one might proffer advice about constructing better emails as though it were applicable to writing in general... or to Writing (the noumenal thing-in-itself!) ... is nothing short of flabbergasting. It recalls an anecdote I read in Annie Dillard's The Writing Life in which some kid who had heard her moth story (from Holy the Firm) expressed wonder that she was the person who had written it. That awe was communicated in the words, "Did you write that story?" She only realized she'd misunderstood the question's import when the kid followed up with, "or did you type it?" 

Don't apply the label "how to become a better writer" to silly little tips about email. Because I use the internet for writing purposes. And I'll find it and do stuff like this to it. 

9. Don't actually read the post when the bullet points are that fishy.
I did, and I regretted it.

Writing... is...

Sigh. I need a drink...