Existing and Writing 2

Content and subject matter can be almost irrelevant if you have some style and creativity. Where does style and creativity come from? Well, as covered in part 1, I believe it comes partly from a mixture of hardship and realism in life and living. I say partly because you obviously need to have inherent skill, training in both a grammatical sense and a creative sense, and a deep passion to express things in words (both in written and verbal form). Anyone can write something interesting about something interesting. The World Trade Center towers collapsed and anyone could write "My heart aches for those involved" and it's a poignant statement. Writing about the mundane takes skill. Actually, I mean, writing something interesting about the mundane takes skill. Most don't get it and that's cool. The world is now full of banal public writing that used to reside at best in a hand written personal journal or more likely just laid dormant in the short term memory of people's minds.

Content and subject matter don't need to be unique (really, nothing humans create is unique any longer, but that's another post series all together). Subject matter actually works best if it is common, yet presented from an odd viewpoint or angle with a separate plane of meaning (trope). A simple yet robust example is Robert Frost's poem "Departmental" in which he writes about ants (can't get much more common or basic than that, right?). Well, the use of the simple insect and the shifting focus from small simplicity to complex concepts unfolds into a comparison to humans and our society that has become automated both literally and figuratively, where we seem to act based more on what is expected rather than what is in our hearts. Thoroughly Departmental.

Simply regurgitating what one observes or experiences is, well, boring. It's boring, mostly, because most of us have experienced that same thing in some form. It's like the photos you see of someone's gear laid out the night before a run/ride/hike/trip, whatever. You're like, "Wow, that's interesting - socks, shoes, hat, water bottle." That's clearly why people feel the need to enhance most of the photos they graciously share with the world. The photos are images that have enjoyed heavy exposure already, thus the need to filter the image in the hopes of shifting the presentation to make it interesting.

You need to not only observe and experience common things but ask what it means. Why did something occur the way it did? What influence does it have on me? On others? The fact that it may be too boring to write about could be the thing that makes it interesting to write about. What makes this thing stand apart from similar things? Why is this particular thing interesting this time? You may not have the answer. Most don't.

Today's my Birthday, so go ahead and take the day off work and write an essay about something common. Your boss will understand.

Part 3