ROARK ON WRITING

Writing is learning. When we put words together on paper, we discover our mind. The process of writing uncovers, and accesses not only consciousness but also the unconscious. We are surprised by what we didn’t realize we knew. In writing we explore that entire archive called memory. The act of choosing definite words, phrases, and structure calls forth the hidden. Brainstorming, free-writing exercises break through all kinds of inhibitions that repress the vast store of knowledge we have acquired but to which we had lost access.

Writing therefore, is inevitably revelatory. Our self is infallibly exposed in print. Our choice of topic, style, word tells who we are. Though we choose a rigorously objective, dispassionate approach, seeking to hide our self, we thereby demonstrate elements of our character.

Even when we have traveled other paths of learning, writing helps clarify our thoughts. It demands that we choose between linguistic options. Ideas are elusive: now we have them clearly in mind, now we can't bring them into focus--sometimes never again--unless we have preserved them in writing. Then we have them fixed and stable on a page, available for examination and reconsideration. We can safely lay them aside and pick them up at leisure. This process leads to the editing and rewriting that sharpens focus. Finally we can express exactly what we think. Writing is a form of thinking.

Writing often makes the transition from learning and thinking to artistic creation. The two major elements all definitions of art must consider are form and expression. We do not write long before we become concerned with how our words look on the page. Appearance communicates. If, in seeking to understand what we have written, we read it aloud—a wise practice—to ourselves, we often will find ways to revise and improve the sound. The sonority of words, and their rhythm or lack of it, communicates.

Once we begin rearranging our writing not just to clarify meaning, but to yield more pleasing form, we may discover that writing is fun. Writing enjoyed becomes a source of therapy, bringing a degree of healing to our troubled spirits.

Writing for our own edification is one thing, writing for publication is another. When he was a reporter for The Kansas City Star, Hemingway judged that no one should write anything for publication unless it had not been said before, or we could say it better than others had done. We should hear Hemingway. Our world—and often our mind—is already cluttered by huge heaps of literary trash, trivia, and fallacy. Unless we can improve the situation, we do well to maintain a modest silence.

On the other hand, some of us believe we have something that must be said if our life is not to have been wasted, things we dare not die without having offered as a testimony. No one else has written it, has addressed it to the proper readers, or said it clearly and persuasively. We sense that we dare not leave it unsaid.

The California longshoreman, Eric Hoffer, responded when an editor at Harper and Row asked him to expand his relatively short first manuscript, by saying that each paragraph had at least one good sentence, each page had at least one good paragraph, and each chapter had at least one good idea. Hoffer claimed that this was more than could be found in most of the books published by Harper. Perhaps if we measure up to Hoffer’s standard, we can justify seeking to publish our writing.