Lately I’ve been writing a lot. About New York, about the ridiculous happenings of my own life, about everything and nothing.
I’m working at the District Attorney’s Office this summer, surrounded by people who either have gone to law school or are planning on it. Talk among my fellow interns often shifts toward the best LSAT courses, the highlights of each law school, Kaplan vs. Testmasters, Harvard vs. Yale, and on and on. Whenever anyone asks me which LSAT course I’m taking, I answer truthfully that I’m not taking anything. I don’t want to admit that I’d rather be on Law and Order than actually be a lawyer. As a musician and artist, I haven’t been able to sell to myself the idea of sitting in a cubicle doing paperwork for the rest of my life.
Several of my friends have decided that I should be a journalist or a writer, and sure, I might enjoy writing if I learned how to do it. But the decision to become a writer is not one with which I am comfortable. Inherent in the act of writing and publishing is the assumption that people are going to want to read what you have to say. And who says what you have to say is anything entertaining or worthwhile?
Let’s take Amhpub. Many blogs discuss current events and controversial issues. But many are just musings and stories, recounts of what’s going on in our respective lives. I am guilty of this as well - the majority of my blog is made up of personal essays. But what makes us think our lives are any more interesting than anyone else’s? What makes us think will people want to read a play-by-play of our day-to-day?
A friend of mine who recently broke up with his girlfriend told me that being in a relationship with someone is about having a spectator to your life. Ultimately, we want someone to witness the minute details of our lives and in doing so make them add up to something more than an exhausted yawn at the end of the day – having someone witness our silly, circumstantial and unimportant daily occurrences makes them worth something.
Writing about our lives takes that idea to the next level. Even if we have a personal witness, sometimes we need more. A significant other ideally loves us unconditionally and is by definition interested in our lives. But perhaps we need people who are not connected to us to say that that what is going on in our lives is interesting, that our stories are entertaining. I get excited whenever I get an email notifying me that someone has commented on my blog. (I got a comment!!!) You do too, don’t even try to hide it.
I leave you with one final question: isn’t there something inherently arrogant about writing a blog? An often unspoken and even unrecognized confidence that we can’t help but display when we press the publish button? Or perhaps it’s an insecurity.
7 responses so far ↓
1 Ben Goldfarb (bgoldfarb09) // Jun 17, 2008 at 8:29 pm
“But the decision to become a writer is not one that I am comfortable.”
After reading that sentence, all I could think was… no wonder you ain’t.
2 irradient (yhuang11) // Jun 18, 2008 at 1:45 am
I don’t hide the fact that I’m excited to get comments on my blog. (http://amhpub.amherst.edu/yhuang11/blog/2008/05/01/the-readings-of-various-academic-departments-lessons-learned/)
Also, it’s late, but I am lucid when I say your posts are really interesting to read. Check FireStats if you’re really curious how many people actually wander into your musings daily/weekly/monthly.
3 Stephen Stewart (sastewart09) // Jun 19, 2008 at 2:33 pm
Oh, without a doubt, most writers are often labeled as full of themselves and pretentious. Sit in an Amherst English class…it’s everywhere.
And I think you do need a strong level of confidence in general to want to go and put part of yourself via writing out into the public, but I think many of those people exist. Someone who thinks they simply have an interesting story to tell. We’re surrounded by it our whole lives from bed time stories to summer reading to research for theses.
It only makes sense some would take it further and try to write those stories themselves. It’s about how much your willing to take in the way of backlash, criticisms and misunderstandings.
I don’t think that should stop you. YOU decide if your story is good enough. If you want to make money ,that’s a different story (sorry).
4 Amy Pan (npan10) // Jun 23, 2008 at 10:42 am
Yes, I would agree that people blog (at least partly) because they want a spectator in their lives–whether they actually know them or not–to give the mundane a little more meaning. But I would say that people also blog for themselves.
Blogging is therapeutic. It’s halfway between a private diary and shouting out about yourself to the world. It’s like decompressing sometimes. People can choose to read about you and your opinions, or not.
And I wouldn’t say that the practice of writing is inherently arrogant. It’s like making music, or art; it can be as arrogant or humble as the artist/writer himself.
5 joseph (jsmeall10) // Jun 26, 2008 at 7:42 pm
So, in your estimation, personal/creative writing stands in for a romantic partner? I can’t decide whether to find that vaguely egotistical or terrifying.
And anyway, you call yourself an artist/musician. So surely you must concede that fine arts are all “inherently arrogant,” perhaps even more so than writing. One doesn’t create in a vacuum; the essence of being a writer or musician or artist is having an audience to validate what you do by observing it and responding.
You must be tickled pink to get the fifth comment notification email for this entry, hehe…
6 Olivia Katrandjian (okatrandjian09) // Jun 27, 2008 at 12:55 pm
To clear up a few things:
I did not say that writing stands in for a romantic partner, I do not believe that. Rather, that perhaps blogging about our personal lives and having people read about what we are doing on a day-to-day basis can serve to validate the our otherwise not terribly meaningful daily occurrences.
Amy, I agree with you that blogging is therapeutic. It allows us to vent, whether or not anyone reads it. As far as comparing writing with the practice of making music and art, on a general level I understand what you’re saying, but it’s difficult for me on a personal level to equate the two. I have been playing the violin for over fourteen years now, but have only just begun to write…
7 joseph (jsmeall10) // Aug 30, 2008 at 12:23 am
Really? You never wrote a word before amhpub? Amazing!
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