Critical Complexity

You know what I hate worse than writing? Writing about writing. Sure, I guess I understand why we might be asked to write about writing, just as I know thinking about thinking is probably a useful exercise. In both cases, we are being forced to acknowledge ourselves as thinkers and writers and investigate these roles. But I still don’t like it.

After fuming about it for a while and coming to the conclusion that it did, indeed, have a purpose, I thought it might be interesting—or necessary for my own sanity—to explore why I resisted this assignment so very much. I mean, I am a good student. I have always been a good student. I trust my teachers, and I enjoy my work for school. What made this assignment so darn infuriating? I began to think that addressing my frustration directly by exploring its cause would force me to take time to think critically about my writing self and find the answers that could help me become more motivated by this topic. I felt doing so was the only way I could ever begin this assignment without pulling all my hair out.

I thought it best to begin by exploring what I already knew about writing. Perhaps there I could find the real source of my anxiety. Maybe writing about writing would help me learn what I didn’t know about writing, and the only way I knew how to find out what I didn’t know was to identity what I already knew.

I already knew that writing is an activity that yields a product. The factory metaphor here is (or at least was) unintentional, because I have never thought of writing in any mechanical way. Or maybe I have. I started to wonder if I might be onto something here. I took this metaphor even further to rip into the heart of my problem with this assignment. I asked myself, “As a factory worker, would I feel the same frustration were I to investigate my relationship with the machines I operate on my portion of the assembly line?” I started to think that I might. Just like I don’t want to think about the process required to bring the hamburger I had for lunch to the table, so too do I want to leave the process of writing behind the scenes. As a writer who loves to write, maybe I thought that knowing what goes on behind the scenes would spoil the fun-- soil the creative spirit in my future writing projects just as thinking about the activities at the slaughterhouse and the meat packing plant spoils my meal. If I think about it, I can’t eat. If I think about my writing process, will I also be unable to write?

Unlike many writers, I don’t have pages and pages of notes and drafts and partial outlines serving as concrete evidence of my writing process. I write in my head and then I place it on paper. In order to understand my writing process—to write about it—don’t I have to see it? Maybe I don’t create multiple drafts because I would rather not see it. But now, a page and a half into this paper I am writing about writing, I find myself staring that bastard right in the face. At first, I winced. Now I am in a staring contest, and I have yet to blink.

Complexity and uncertainly thrill me. When I began treating my writing process as an intellectual project rather than “soul searching,” I felt my fear and anger dissipating. By investigating my own writing process, I learned that it is complex (and that is what I love about it) and the path I will find myself on is always uncertain. I get lost, and I love it. I find a brand new path, and I love that, too. Meeting my writing process eye-to-eye will not lesson that complexity or uncertainly because each new project leads me someplace new. Knowing how I work will not curb my appetite for working. There is no real evidence to prove my writing is messy and uncertain because when I sit down to write, I write just about what I want to say. But now I know more about my mind factory/slaughterhouse, and I take comfort in knowing that I needn’t become a vegetarian because of it.