On Reading and Writing

This arti­cle was writ­ten in response to the fol­low­ing prompt: “Write about your expe­ri­ences read­ing and writing.”

Here’s the thing: I’m suf­fer­ing from writer’s block. But, see, it’s not the small-scale, can’t-type-a-few-words kind of block. It’s like that chick from The Exor­cist, projectile-vomiting every­where. Only, in my case, the vomit is hor­ri­ble prose, the kind of prose that makes a reader want to revert to the days of Frog and Toad, where life was sim­ple and no one tried to use the word “ethe­real” effec­tively in an essay.

I’m just sayin’.

So, see, here’s my dilemma: I’m sup­posed to be writ­ing a paper on my love of writ­ing. And, really, at the moment, all that I want to do is chuck my lap­top out the win­dow, because every­thing I write sounds silly and trite, and not befit­ting of a bud­ding writer at all.
I guess the ironic value of it all is to be appre­ci­ated, though really, it just serves to feed my neu­ro­sis. It’s not a big deal; I guess you have to be slightly neu­rotic to want to write, to want to arrange those tiny, black char­ac­ters into a pat­tern that makes a sen­tence, into a pat­tern that makes any sense at all. All that you do is tor­ture your­self with the effort­less beauty of other people’s pat­terns, wish­ing and hop­ing that some­day, yours may fol­low suit.

So why is it that I love writ­ing? When I have days (months, really) like today, where noth­ing seems to go my way, and I keep acci­den­tally typ­ing the lyrics to Sweet Child O’Mine instead of respond­ing to a prompt, some­times it seems futile. Some­times, on days like today, it seems like my love is entirely unre­quited, abu­sive, bor­der­ing on the side of masochis­tic. But then there are those days when, finally, I get a sen­tence right, and every­thing just stops. And sud­denly, as trite as it sounds, everything’s clear, and I’m in a house of glass, and I can see all of my char­ac­ters and sub­jects, and they’re all there for my enter­tain­ment. They rely on me to exist.

And so I make them be.

As my brother would say, “God com­plex much?”

But it’s worth it all. It’s worth it all for that one line that works. Last year, I had my first real expe­ri­ence with per­sonal writ­ing. I was work­ing on a piece to enter into the NCTE Achieve­ment in Writ­ing con­test, but I had no idea where to start. I wrote crap draft after crap draft, wait­ing for some­thing that would stick, for a line that would come into focus, one that would guide me and val­i­date my work. In the midst of a whin­ing, angst-filled med­i­ta­tion on the state of mod­ern pri­vate edu­ca­tion, it happened.

“We were by the ele­va­tor and I was gig­gling and he was gig­gling and he was wear­ing the top hat that he thought was edgy, but because he was still a child it only made him look sad, and made his eyes look big­ger and more hope­ful and made his face look younger.”

Out of con­text, it makes no sense. Now, even, upon re-reading it, it doesn’t seem nearly as mirac­u­lous as it was when I wrote it. But that’s part of the beauty, I guess. When I read that line, I can pic­ture exactly where I was when I wrote it, can pic­ture the scene exactly that I was writ­ing about. It’s a type of trans­porta­tion, of trans­fig­u­ra­tion, even. And the recre­ation of that sen­sa­tion, of that rush of heat into my cheeks and the shak­ing of my fin­gers and the feel­ing that I’d writ­ten some­thing wor­thy, that alone is worth the hor­ri­ble prose that plagues my Microsoft Word documents.

I ended up win­ning the con­test. I didn’t use that line, though. In the end, it didn’t make the cut.

But my jour­ney as a writer, as a bud­ding writer in great need of guid­ance (hint, hint), would be com­pletely hope­less if not for my undi­luted love of lit­er­a­ture. Since the days of Mer­cer Meyer’s Crit­ter books, I’ve been hooked, read­ing every­thing that I can get my hands on, read­ing every­thing that peo­ple give me.

My eyes don’t tear upon recall­ing the bit­ter­sweet mem­o­ries of early ado­les­cence, or upon wak­ing up from a dream where every­thing seemed so per­fect and real. All it takes is Sey­mour Glass’s wall, though, and I’m gone.

“Oh snail
Climb Mt. Fuji
But slowly, slowly.”

It’s Issa, the poem. It’s writ­ten on Seymour’s wall. It’s writ­ten on my wall now, too, but I can’t think of it with­out crying.

I’m sit­ting here now, in the Star­bucks on El Camino, and peo­ple are look­ing at me funny because my eyes are tear­ing up as I’m writ­ing, only my lips are curled into a half smile, teeth not show­ing, and the tears are turn­ing my eyes “sad cow brown.” They might think I’m crazy; maybe I am. Surely I am. My eyes are tear­ing and I’m regret­ting hav­ing put mas­cara on my lower lashes, all because I’m think­ing of a novel.

This is what lit­er­a­ture does to me.

The music here in Star­bucks is play­ing, and the lyrics keep croon­ing, “cry me a river.” I think they’re speak­ing to me, and it’s scar­ing me slightly.

Franny and Zooey has been my favorite book since sixth grade. It’s my own ver­sion of Bessie’s con­se­crated chicken soup; it’s my lit­er­ary com­fort. My mother gave it to me then, gave me her old copy. I fell in love. I can pic­ture where I sat when I first read it; my room was still blue then, and I was under the toile com­forter on my bed, my teddy bear Jabba curled up against my side. I couldn’t fully under­stand it, then; some of the reli­gious sym­bol­ism went over my head. But, in my own way, I iden­ti­fied entirely with Franny, felt that she would under­stand me more than any other lit­er­ary char­ac­ter. I felt that she could under­stand me more, really, than anyone.

Franny forged the con­nec­tion, but it was Sey­mour that made me fall in love. The idea of him, the idea of his pres­ence, was so mys­ti­cal, so ethe­real, that the book seemed almost tran­scen­dent. Since that first read­ing in sixth grade, I’ve read Franny and Zooey at least once a year. When I’m sad, when I’m lonely, when I feel inun­dated with Pro­fes­sor Tupper-types, I crawl under my own afghan, and pic­ture Zooey sit­ting next to me, lec­tur­ing me on St. Fran­cis of Assisi, pre­tend­ing to be Buddy, and some­how, I’m okay.

In school, read­ing and writ­ing have always come some­what eas­ily to me. I’ve been lucky; the analy­sis of athe­ism in Shelley’s Mont Blanc, or the dis­sec­tion of Dick­en­sian dic­tion, are like games to me, filled with hints and traps that I’m meant to dis­cover. But, at times, the game gets to be too much, and I find myself spi­ral­ing, the neu­ro­sis tak­ing over, and I find myself entirely par­a­lyzed, unable to write or read.

Kind of like what’s hap­pen­ing today.

And so, I’m sit­ting here in Star­bucks, on my third cup of cof­fee (black, one packet of sweet ‘n low), and I’m try­ing to find inspi­ra­tion. There are peo­ple sit­ting around me; I need to see them as char­ac­ters. There’s an older man, hunched over, and I can smell the moth­balls on his brown, argyle sweater. I close my eyes and try to imag­ine the tag, try to imag­ine a note writ­ten on it in per­ma­nent marker. Maybe the sweater was a gift. Maybe it belonged to a friend, or a loved one (it fits him some­what snugly). He’s a char­ac­ter, I try think­ing. I won­der how I’d write him.

My friend is on her way to meet me here; I study bet­ter when I’m not at home. Maybe I should stop try­ing to write some­thing decent; maybe it’s just not meant to be. You wanted to know about my expe­ri­ences in read­ing and writ­ing, so here you go. A nar­ra­tion of my neu­ro­sis. A view into my mind.

At least the projectile-vomit wasn’t real.

• Photo Used with Per­mis­sion