words
“I said I hated to write. I said I would rather do anything else. He was amazed. He said, ‘That’s like a guy who works in a factory all day, and hates it.’ Then I was amazed, for so it was. It was just like that. Why did I do it? I had never inquired. How had I let it creep up on me? Why wasn’t I runiing a ferryboat, like sane people?”
Annie Dillard, The Writing Life
"What is the one thing that keeps you coming back to writing?" I was asked recently. The truth is, I ask myself that constantly. Why return to the frustration? Why commit to the suffering? Why go through it again and again and again? No matter how many times I ask, it never becomes less of a mystery.
It's excruciating and difficult. Writing, for me, is never effortless. It never comes easy. It's digging and pulling and exhaustion and agony, and starting anew.
It's tempting to abandon the project of writing. I've flirted with the idea much and often. I find my creative voice so much more naturally in art, in the juxtaposition of pictures and images. In colors and shapes and textures. With paper and scissors and glue. There is an ease of expression that I don't find with language and words.
And yet, the words still come no matter how I might like to hold them at bay. They call out. They sneak into my designs and collages. They refuse to be silent. Refuse to be still. Refuse to let me leave.
I look through the cut up materials I'm always surrounded by and the words find me. In the scraps of language I find what it is I need to say. Or, in some cases, the things that I need someone to say to me.
*special thanks to
for the conversation that inspired this piece.P.S. ICAD Day 34-37
Earlier this week I shared two pieces I submitted for consideration in the next issue of Cut Me Up Magazine. I made 2 index cards that I submitted as well:
P.P.S. - I sent off one of my index card collages to a community street art show in France; L’Art Au Lavoir. They were kind enough to send my a picture of my little piece on dispay. It’s the 3x5 card hanging top right. It’s nice to know my art is out in the world, no matter how small it might be.
Thank you for the dedication, this was far more than a mention! This writing thing... yeah, leave it or not it's stuck with you and you're good at it! Thank you for sharing this and know you're not alone in feeling like this about writing.
Testing the winds for flight - how exciting!