Write Around and Find Out

I’m writing this because I felt compelled. Not in a dutiful, “Teehee! Writers gotta write!” way, but, like, mechanically? I was just sitting here reading a moment ago and when I put down the book something came over me and made me stand up to go start writing. So I did. Mechanically (straight up androidical) I stood, walked inside through the cloud of Neem oil fart smell from where my wife was spraying the tomato vine, and grabbed my laptop. I hesitated before writing that, just so you know, wary of some fake critic reading this in some fake future and leaving some fake nasty comment along the lines of “REAL WRITERS USE PEN AND PAPER”. Yeah, I know, fake guy—back to the fart smell. I don’t know if you’ve ever smelled Neem Oil but it’s so distinctly fartatious. Not in a trapped-poop way; like a surreptitious sauerkraut. Foul.

Back to the writing. In the few seconds between putting down the book and being automatonned—which “isn’t” a word—into the house, a thesis sprung forth, or rather dropped from the sky like a cartoon anvil. Calling it a thesis is a bit of flattery, it was more just a thought (not entirely original). Side note: I haven’t written like this in months. Perhaps even a year. It was the last one of these I did, and the point of it was in the same family tree: just write, and see what happens. In this one though, I’m feeling stronger things. We all love “just start writing” (in a Dory voice) because when you just start writing, no matter how rough, you figure things out. You discover the point halfway through, go back and make everything make sense. “Just get something on paper,” yeah? It’s kind of what I’m doing right now. Write now.

Yeah, I cackled maniacally right there.

Anyway what I’m trying to get at, is that maybe just “getting it on paper” doesn’t do justice to actually getting it on paper. It feels inadequate to me. Truthfully the title says it in five words, so maybe I’ll just stick to those: write around and find out. Not write around, aimlessly, and hope an anvil hits you in the head. Write around, because you will find out. You will find out what on earth you’re writing about. You will find out if it’s utter bollocks, pure brilliance, and also if you frequently use British idioms because you like the way they sound and then when people notice you get to talk about how you lived in London for a couple years.

Perhaps more clearly: writing is not a shot in the dark, it’s a guarantee. Mathematic. As in, writing will get you somewhere nothing else will. Writing it is the only way you can actually write it. And when you write it, you have something, written. I know that sounds utterly, unbelievably obvious. Stupid even. But thinking about writing as not some tool or technology we use and put aside to get to some other goal such as "another LinkedIn Article" but rather as THE THING itself feels more appropriate to me than the latter. It’s kind of holy, even if it's not serious. And I’m not talking about writing a to-do list. That’s just language. I’m talking about writing, for writing’s sake. Like this.

I sat there for two seconds after putting down the book, and thought of something to write about. But that’s not writing it. And you don’t know what it is until you write it. You HAVE to write it. The jokes never actually write themselves, which is why this one doesn’t have a punchline. So, I stood up and got the laptop and started writing.

I read in some Joan Didion interview that when someone asked her what was going to happen in the novel she was working on, she said something along the lines of: “If I knew, I wouldn’t be writing it.” Bang on.

When you write, you find out. Find out what you mean. Find out if there’s even a point at all. Find out if you’re just blabbering to no one. Find out if it’s satire. Or poetry. Or a way to pass time. Find out if you’re not at all bothered to go back and make sure this whole thing makes a lick of sense. Find out if what you really wanted was to just write for the fun of it. For the writing of it.