Writing Right (or left)

On the front of my mind is the responsibility of being a Writer. The Writer as Activist is a duty I always feel scratching me, in different places and at different times. I learned over a decade ago that Writers are important people. Before, I thought that Writers were entertainers. Like actors dancing and singing on screen. I used to think that the real fight was in the political arena, where men in suits fought other men in suits for the rights of the poor and abused.

But I was mistaken, as we often are, when we perceive through uninformed/misinformed eyes. Disinformation is very real and many people who can read are often misdirected and manipulated, without even a sense of question inside them. I had to learn then, not only to read, but how to read well. How to read critically and with awareness.

And after years of Deliberate Practice (capital D, capital P) I had reached a point of realization which moved me to action. I must not write flippant, inane work. If I use words, for personal or communal gain, I must write as best I can. I was forced to criticize my own spelling, my own reading ability, my own understanding. Through such active awareness,  I could be a better giver. And I really feel like I have become. But the road to progress never has had a final destination. The road is progress.

It’s just that I’ve heard of Writers dying for their craft. Ostracized, punished and wounded (often fatally) for the fact that the words they wrote were too true. Is there such a thing? “Too true?” I mean, really. Who fashioned a gradient scale for truth and lies? Is not a lie a lie and a truth a truth? White lies, ultimate truths, etc. These are a joke, really. There should be no superlatives or degrees of separation. I have a personal passion for nonsense verse. I always have. A writer I met in 2003 once gave me a line I never forgot. “You’re wrong…like a falling mountain.”

I remember reading somewhere that someone who tells the truth always, need not remember anything. I found this to be an important piece of wisdom. And I will not expand on it. It’s wisdom lies in the fact that it stimulates one to think for them selves.  I am sure many of you know about the Salman Rushdie brouhaha of the 1980s. Fiction, at it’s best, is never just Fiction. It reaches towards the truth through the medium of storytelling. A truth washed clean with a lie, like mud used to clean a surface.

There is a lot that rests on the Writer’s head. He/She/It needs to be hyper-aware, more often than not. One word chosen over another can mean the difference between simply good or extremely excellent. One’s subject matter can be either light, with little staying power, or one can have immortality.

Writers, of verse, essays, journals, short stories, novels and all else, need to do a lot more than just write to be considered a Writer of caliber. There’s so much more to the world of words and it takes a strong work ethic to nurture that in one’s self and in others. I have a vocation, volition and conviction to Write the best I can. Because I may be my first critic, but I am surely not the last.

By the way, this is a poem from my favourite Writer, Anon.

The Hunter

I have fought against the poodle with his gory, deadly paws;
I have faced the fearsome kitten, wild and bony,
And somehow I've evaded the enormous chomping jaws
Of the frighteningly ferocious Shetland pony.

My triumph o'er the rabbit is now sung throughout the land,
And men still speak in whispers of the day
When, attacked by twelve mosquitoes, with my one unwounded hand,
I killed nine of them and dove the rest away.

I have faced the housefly in his lair, I have stalked the ladybug
And the caterpillar, grim and fierce and hairy;
That trophy there is bumblebee, and this, my favourite rug,
Has been fashioned from the hide of a canary.

I have dove into the ocean to do combat with a shrimp,
I have dared the hen to come on out and fight;
I have battled with the butterfly (that's why I have this limp),
And I slew a monstrous grubworm just last night.

But this evening I must sally forth to meet the savage moth,
And if I don't come back in time for tea,
You shall know that I fell gallantly, as gallantly I fought
So please be gentle when you speak of me.