Why Writers are Wired

Writers are Weak, Lonely, Selfish, Pretentious, Confused, and Clueless:

Chuck Phaulanick is a great writer; he comes across as polite, humble, empathetic, hard-working, and a man who is filled with grit and vigor. Pull out any book of his and you will find a little boy fighting to define masculinity and power.

He is undoubtedly one of the best writers of our times and is a product of writing workshops. Enrolling in one sure has worked out for him, but even he, in a couple of interviews speaks of how he was not able to push creative boundaries because the other "writers" in his workshop felt threatened by his imagination.

Experiencing a Writer's Workshop

I attended a book release in Auckland, in a little indie book store, a couple of years ago. The book was an anthology of short stories, so there were a few writers reading out their three-page personal essays. Wine, cold cuts, and olives were served. A bunch of the writers' families sat listening to their sons and daughters' bloodless and gutless lines, nodding in approval.

I am a Bukowskian when it comes to such things, I truly believe that if your parents are able to appreciate your work, bin it, for you have not spilled enough of your blood on the sheets. In other words, you have not pushed the limits of thoughts, you have not been brave enough to kill a part of yourself to write that piece and you have comfortably worked within the boundaries of the previous generations.

But, at the time, in the little bookstore, I felt the warm comfort you only feel as a child. Remember the times you'd slip into your ma and da's blanket in the late morning of a luscious, chilly day? Well, I can't. I've never been there, but I did feel that warmth. It was a rainy evening, and you know how rainy evenings get, the smell of wet concrete, the fresh cold, rain drops highly defined under cantilevered street lights, the void within waiting to fall in love, the delusional beer glass lense, all works into an erection that can be satisfied by almost anyone or anything. That is pretty much what that warmth was and it had me thinking that I had finally found my tribe.

I spoke to a few writers and soon found out that they were a part of a writing workshop. "Sign me up," I said, "Adopt me as your brother," I said. I was going to be a part of a historical movement with my newfound family, the kiwiana beat generation or the Zealandia surrealists, whatever, I was ready for revolution.

After I got done talking to a few of them, I picked up a Kate Tempest novel (she was still Kate Tempest on the book's cover) and took it to the shopkeeper. The girl behind the counter was a political science major at Auckland Uni, and God was she beautiful. She had a little star-shaped temporary tattoo beneath her right eye and her bleach blonde hair was shaped like Tinkerbell's. I had never seen a woman like that in my life before, I had never had an intellectual flirt like that before, I had never fallen in love like that.

A huge line had collected behind us, waiting for us to finish. I gave the others way, walked to the side, picked up a chair, and sat by the counter, waiting for my pixie to finish her duties and get back to me. I sat arranging the topics in my head, as watched her legs move in her tightly fitted, maroon, long skirt.

My tribe, my fellow existentialists, my fellow materialists, the fellows I was to be one among had gathered in a corner, giving me a sly look every now and then, giggling. I am no stranger to those gazes, I've been an immigrant all my life; I was nurtured by derision. While I watched their circle gossip and giggle away, I caught one of their eyes, I could see through his soul. He hated me, he felt less of a man around me; vipers, spitting venom, crawled behind his glassy eyes, in fear. He was a coward. I knew it, for I have always known myself to be one.

I got Kae's book and walked away. I had not worked up the guts to ask my pixie out, so I let her be. Maybe another day, another time, another life.

Competitors, Mothers, and Peer Reviews

The last person you ask to read your book for feedback is your mother. That is who I asked to read mine, for she is the last of the people that I know. I had a lot of friends growing up, genuine bonds most of them. Though no more a part of my life, I take for granted that I could show up in one of their houses tomorrow and pick up where we had left off. I know, I am naive at times.

It is best to get peer-reviewed by a fellow writer they say, but we often forget how competitive writers can get. Competitiveness, here, is seldom in good spirits; it is usually mixed with spite, jealousy, weakness, insecurity, and topped off with hypersensitivity. A great sentence by an unknown, a sentence you're not capable of flashes on your screen, answer my question truly will you, my dear writer, do you feel positively for the one who has constructed it, or does the acid of envy burn through your guts?

It has been a while since my mother and I have been together; we have been seas and continents apart for almost a decade now. When she read the first 30 pages of my book the poor woman asked me if I had really been through what I had written about. There is nothing I wouldn't do to write the next honest line, she just doesn't understand the lengths that I would go, I'd be willing to sell my soul to write the next line in truth.

She put the book away, for she couldn't go on. She said it had hurt her to see my blood on those sheets. I was glad she couldn't; the next time I read Bukowski, I can pat myself on the back.

Besides, what feedback are your loved ones capable of? They either support your dreams or dismiss them, they'll either applaud your delusional efforts or undermine your genius.

So, when a writer comes along, extend your arms and give him your book. For who else would know what it means to write if not a writer, right? But before you do hand him your book, try this little trick: patronize him, applaud his genius, act mesmerized by his trains of thought, and once he has scaled Everest's pinnacle, deflate him with a simple question: "Mate, why do you write?"

Fabrication of Purpose

At a time when data, facts, censorship, and conformity move the world, it is a shame to be a mere fabricator of stories. But, storytellers we all are, as a species, and storytellers we shall always be.

The novelist Hanif Kureshi in one of his lectures speaks about how the idea of being a writer saved his life. It is important to note here that a "writer" is not completely tied to the act of writing, for when a writer is not writing, he is still a writer, isn't he?

To be a writer is to be recognized as a writer, and writers have somehow squirmed their way into the core of societies and civilizations to make themselves a place. And the place they got to is a position of power, and from that place, they sat in their little dark rooms and wrote the phrase "the pen is mightier than the sword,".

I am drifting here, but the point I am trying to make is that our societies have somehow created space for writers, and have accepted their presence. And for those of us, tribeless, spineless, rootless, history-less, voiceless, subaltern immigrants (and an immigrant I was in the land that birthed me ), is the writer's role simply a chance at identity?

What do you see when you look at yourself? For, across mirrors, I see nothing.

If you understand that your yearning for glory is your desperate attempt to escape mediocrity, and your dames and treasures are known not to be within reach, would you still pull out your writer and type? If your identity is forever in hollow ambiguity, and to be a writer would mean to be nothing at all, why would you still write?

The Urge to Scribble

It seems that we are incapable of differentiating actions from identity. The action that best suits our narratives are actions we like to ideally be identified with. My previous sentence displays vulgar naivety in its arrogance. Though the line is no lie, I would like to confirm that I do not consider these narratives, these stories we tell ourselves, straightforward and singular.

To sit in solitude and scribble requires more than a greed-filled attempt at identity; it requires a certain conflict coupled with helplessness. And where can one find more conflict than in he who gives life up in order to write about life?

Writing steals time, sleep, family, friends, guts, blood, lungs, health, and dignity. Is all this worth the act? If it is not, but you can't help but write, is the act simply hysterical scribbles? Is "conflict" and "helplessness" retrospective pseudo-reasons?

I sure do believe writing is hysterical scribblings, but conflict is no pseudo-reason. A primary conflict, I have observed, arises from the incompatibility between the stories we tell ourselves of our shame and the fabricated stories of our ideal self.

When this conflict begins to overbear on its host, he can resort to one of two paths; violence or creation, in other words, death or writing. And when the scribbling begins, an honest approach requires engaging in the conflict from both directions, a balance between the story of our curse and our ambitions. Dwelling too much on the curse alone paves the path to nihilistic stupidity and dwelling on our ambitions alone makes us mindless hero worshipers of fictional beings.

Once the balance is established, honest scribbling begins. But, no matter how honest those scribbles on your prison walls are, you can't call yourself a writer unless your world sees you as one. For the world to see you as one, one is required to tick every box on the people's writer's invisible checklist.

If pretentious not, the writer fails the approval and acceptance of the very people he rejects and criticizes.

And once the writer is accepted as a writer by his society, when the story of who he is merges with who he wants to be, which goes on to merge with the societal expectations, where then is the conflict to fuel his scribbles? Now that he can't write, does his society still see him as a writer? Ever wonder why David Foster Wallace killed himself?

Midas' Touch

Once the scribbling is done, the hermit crab wears his sunglasses with the lens of Literature and leaves his shell. Brittle and hyper-sensitive to reality he walks from one event to the next, beaten, mocked, broken, spat at, kicked around, laughed at, only to return to his shell and scribble again.

You see, if you can't break my heart, if you can't bear your soul, if you can't get into my head, if you can't show me who you really are, your violence, your fire, your evil, your God, I don't want to know you. My heart clings to my sleeve, and I am waiting for you to break it, but when I leave you, it's mostly because you have not managed to break me; you can't break that which is already shattered.

If writers were a breed, they would be the most pitiful, if writers were a race, that is the race you keep away from. With their Midas' touch they'd turn all their children to gold, and unlike the King, would never turn to look back.

To the ladies out there, who fancy these pitiful beings, do you really want to waste your love for a man who can do no more than turn you into a poem that shall never be read?

Love Hate Relationship

Never fall into the trap of believing artists who say they love to paint with a smile on their faces. For love and smiles are Disneyfication of the suicidal realities attached to falling to one's death and labor.

If a writer states that he hates writing with a smile, do yourself a favor and give his writing a shot. Chances are you smell his tears in his every word and come to understand his definition of love.

What to you is love, is meaningless to the one that explores the meaning of that word, understands the being states attached to it, and ends up defining the word for himself. And when love is explored to this depth, it loses the grip it holds on one. To write is to explore, to explore is to change, to change is to kill, and that which can't be killed can't be hated. It can only be subjected to indifference.

But that which can be loved can be hated. But, with so much pain and resistance attached to the act of writing, please don't associate this vulgarity to love.

The Ghost Who Walks

Spend a year with a writer and the next day you will see what he sees across a mirror: nothing. No traces of his presence, no residues of his smell, no impact on your psyche, but he leaves you feeling drained.

I remember being told this a while ago, "It was all in my head, I look through our old pictures and you are never there, I look back in time, and you were never there. It was all me and my vivid imagination of a connection well loved.". I couldn't say a thing to her, for when I look back through our pictures I don't see me, when I look back in time she was the only one dancing her lonely cosmic dance, her imagination was sure vivid, for she saw a man instead of a mirror when all I had always been to her was the latter.

And now I have turned her into Midas' golden princess, and chances are she never forgives me. I shall probably write about guilt someday.

Intorellable, Shellfish, and Incompetent

Imagine how terrible a writer has to be to get kicked out of a writing gig. Writing, engineering, researching, carpentry, metal works, construction, cooking, waiting tables, sailing, tour guiding, tank cleaning, boson, store boy, too young to have gotten kicked out of so many jobs.

Grammatically incompetent, too lazy to spell so I blame dyslexia, inherently a daydreamer so I can't focus on tedious labor, mesmerized by bigger pictures, have no eye for detail, can sell my soul for an honest line but can never sell fire to an Eskimo, only when nothing else worked out did writing make sense.

Fancy an equation?

no writing = death

writing = death

then

death =?

Maybe I just didn't try hard enough, or long enough. But, tell me this, why try at all? So I earn? Money? It's all a farce, look at it. The problem with humans is (like I am not one) that we can't stand to sit idle. Sitting idle makes us subject to our thoughts and our thoughts are sick cause we are all sick in the head.

Don't mistake our sickness for abnormality, our sickness is inherent and ashamed of this innate sickness we have created the very rules and order that our societies function on.

Morals are fabricated, countries are myths, your patriotism is your fear of ending up alone, your money is plastic, your food is plastic, your lips are plastic, your teeth are plastic, your breasts are plastics, your men are women, your women are whores, your kids are brats, your prayers are ass kisses, your ambitions are your cowardice, your pride has nothing to do with you, for you are incapable, you are inadequate, incompetent, insufferable, intolerable.....

While I sit here and brag about why I can't tolerate you, give me one good reason as to why you should me.

Kahan J Sudev