The Writing Writer

What is writing? Words on paper, words on a computer screen. Collections of words that come together to express or communicate something as trivial as a grocery list and as epic as a manifesto. Writing is distilled communication–it can be crystal clear or muddy as a river in spring. Any one can write. Just like anyone can play the guitar. But not every one can do it well, with mastery, with craftsmanship and care.

This is the gulf between those who write and writers. A writer is someone who writes because she must–she will always write, regardless of what is going on in her life, regardless of obstacles or annoyances. A writer puts words to paper, yes, but a writer can ‘see’ a flow to these words and fashions a vision from repeated symbols. More than this, a writer is a storyteller (one is not always the other), and contains within the natural rhythms of story as well as the conventional and unconventional methods of crafting.

I create stories from the world around me. I see things and people that connect and I mold them into events that reveal something about human existence and experience. Sometimes these things are painful–people do not wish to see them. But they must see them. They must be faced and thought of and worked through–tried and tested in a crucible, people come out better on the other side after facing their demons.

This is one of the most powerful and meaningful things I can do with my life. Imagine, being given a gift and choosing to use it in a way that benefits others. This applies to many walks of life. Now imagine being unable to use this gift because of things like ‘genre’ and ‘market’ and ‘box office’.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not against making money. Money is needed for life in the current way we’ve set up the world (it has yet to be seen if this is indeed the best set up for society). Box office is great. Genre can be fun. Markets help to better aim stories at the people who need to hear them.

But they are also restrictive to creators and degrading to viewers.

Practically no one will watch a gut-wrenching real life depiction of a woman who loses her legs and is confined to a wheelchair. How does she live, what are her struggles? Live in her place for 2 hours and know something exists beyond you and that we are all pieces of the same experience. No one will see it because it is uncomfortable and people don’t like to acknowledge that suffering and pain are part of life. Films have become only about entertainment and entertainment only. The business of film. The money you can make and spend.

I see more value in a 20 000$ feature with bad cinematography that is genuine and revealing of the people in this country, this world, than a billion dollar blockbuster that makes 6 people rich beyond imagining.

Maybe that’s just me.

The point I am getting at is a film without emotional content, without a core (a soul you might call it) is a sad creature without a lasting impact beyond surface sensation and petty manipulation that gives the impression of an emotional journey but in fact is a complete illusion. This in comparison to material with a lasting, visceral, impact full of emotional twists and turns. These movies make you think and feel and you remember them–they make an impression beyond spoken words and images locked into your mind. In fact it is this emotional content that binds those things and makes them part of your experience.

A writer writers because he must. But with no one to read, the act is empty.

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