Who done it??

 

 

Funny how a comment can send you on a quest; that’s what happened to me last week.

I was talking with a woman in my office whom I consider to be a talented photographer and writer.  She commented that sometimes she looks at something she has written and wonders, ‘who wrote that mushy stuff; where did that come from?’   She went on to say that sometimes she feels there is someone ‘in there’ doing the writing.

That struck a chord in me because I have a good friend who….well, let’s say she doesn’t care for my blog.  She says it’s sappy and that I am much wittier and more caustic than the things I write.   I can’t guarantee I’m any funnier in person, but I know I have a sarcastic bent that may not come off in my writings.   I’ve also written things that I would not, likely could not, put into words and wondered where it came from.

As the editor of Heart of Ohio Magazine it’s been my good luck to get to know Barb Haller; she is now a contributing columnist for us.  I wrote her to ask if she ever feels that her writing is somehow different from the person others seem to perceive her to be.   Her response was that she believes writers access and reveal a deeper part of themselves through their work.  Writing helps her sort out her thoughts and feelings.  She says she, too, has experienced a “who’s that?” when she reads something she wrote because it often reflects deeper things than day to day life.

Now my interest was really piqued.  I called another friend, this time a male, and asked if he ever experienced this split between his every-day life and his writing.  He laughed, “Well, now that you mention it I often go back to read things I’ve written years before and wonder who in the heck put that in my file.  Sometimes my work can come off as stuffy and cerebral, and you know that’s not what I’m about!”

I’ve been writing this blog over a year and a half now; the magazine over four years.  I went back through old blog posts to see if any of them struck me as having been written by some ‘other’ personality.  Here’s what I’ve decided:

Writing is a very solitary and private thing.  In our day to day lives we interact with other people; their reactions, needs and expectations can change how we behave; even who we are.  Writing isn’t like that….writing doesn’t happen to anyone but the writer.  It seems to me that writing is the pure distillation of who we really are; if you cannot tap into that you’re not a writer.  When I write the product is pure “me” without anyone else’s input.   Even the creation of fiction is pure because the source of the material is right inside the writers head; processed and stretched and chiseled by no one but the author.  In its purest form writing is ones interaction with oneself.

I suppose in talking with other writers I’ve answered my own question.  The outer ‘me’ is who I am when I react to other people, demands and unavoidable daily stress.  The writer, the inner ‘me’, is who I am when left to explore my own thoughts and feelings.  I can only speak for me, but the only way for that inner person to be heard is to write….and so I do. 

                                                      Life is Good