Well, yet another example of the pitfalls--and the benefits--of this blog format, which I am fascinated by as an entity outside my own usage. I was so tired last night (I know, enough already), and so relieved by finishing the piece I'd been laboring over forever, that I just plunged in on a subject that I do care about but in a way that was sloppy, to my mind, and really unclear. The thing is, I am not actually going to be able to write fully formed, insightful essays every single day. I am already pushing the time at which I write these later and later, and the pressure to make them perfect has the potential to drive me to quit. I hesitated over the "Publish Post" button for a little too long last night, cringing--adding the apologetic Andy Rooney reference, knowing I had not succeeded at getting at what I wanted to say.
I am glad I posted it anyway. Writing is such a complicated process, except that it isn't: sometimes what you want to say does come out right the first time, but much more often almost everything you write is a step on the way to the next step, and there are sometimes just so many steps. When I made myself read what I wrote last night, and read the three comments that were posted, I realized that what I had written, until the very end, was indeed a nostalgia piece, which is fine but not what I set out to do. Once I started writing about TV, I was back in the world of my childhood, which is still very real to me, and in spite of the cutesy references to specific shows, I think being nostalgic for a time when our pop culture references were shared, and set in a particular moment in time, is both a valid subject and a personal truth. I loved the comment about how we used to watch "Specials"--although they may still call them that, it's not special if it can be purchased or recorded and viewed at one's leisure, 24 hours a day.
But two things: the first is that I actually love modern technology. I love that I can record House and watch it whenever I want to, that if I am sick and home alone and have no energy to do anything else Law and Order is always showing on one channel or another and thanks to Netflix I get to see the movies I don't see in the theater anymore, and I can see them whenever I want. I really, really love that I haven't seen a commercial in about seven years (and when one comes on now, on my parents' house, say, and I can't fast-forward it, it makes me crazy--I feel morally outraged). And if I want to make popcorn, I don't want to have to turn up the volume so I can hear from the kitchen--I want to hit pause so I don't miss a word. When I look at what I wrote I realize I come off like, well, my father--who suffers from nostalgia in the worst way and idealizes the past to such an extent that it is borderline delusional--although he, too, has come to depend on, relish, such conveniences as his enormous flatscreen TV and the infinite number of channels provided by cable.
The second is that I'm not even a big TV person to begin with. I like watching TV but as I really don't want my kids to be TV-watchers I've cut way back so I don't look like a hypocrite (which begs the question of why all the candy and cookies in the house are hidden, but that's another subject for another day. or not). What I was trying to get at was not the fact that it's sad that we no longer have to get up off the couch to change the channel or that we aren't all watching Roots at the same time but that the fact that we don't and aren't means that something essential has changed--in our homes, in our culture, in the very way we process information. I am interested in the ramifications of this change--for individuals, for society. There are so many elements to this for me. For example, if I no longer watch commercials, ever, and I am certainly not alone in this, how are advertisers going to woo me? Is there more product placement in the shows and movies we watch? If I don't have to wait for something, anything, how do I learn to deal with delayed gratification? Does it not? I am still skirting around this subject and speaking in generalities, but at least I am thinking about it now and writing closer to it.
I guess that is why I say that this blog thing is beneficial as well as highly problematic. Although I don't like to admit it, my very best writing requires serious thought and work and the taking of all the aforementioned steps. When I was a little girl, my grandfather, a very wise, kind man who never seemed to rush or do things in a sloppy, last-minute way, showed me how to draw using tracing paper. He had me start a portrait of him, and I drew his face. I thought of myself as a decent artist, and I was pretty pleased with my results; he looked at it carefully and asked me, matter-of-factly, if I thought it looked like him. "No," I admitted. It was not a bad face, but it wasn't his face. Which he then pointed out. "You're drawing what you think a face is supposed to look like. I want you to draw me." He placed a piece of tissue paper on top of my drawing. "Now look at me, really look at me. And try again." The shape of the head was right, so I kept that, but I could see as I drew over my original drawing where I had deviated from the actual contours. A number of sheets of tissue paper later, I had a sketch that actually resembled my grandfather. I think writing is like this, or should be: adding layers of tissue paper and sketching again on top of what you have--but in order to do this you have to have something to start with. That is how I am going to try to envision this blog: the original flawed sketch and then the layers that build toward the finished result.
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3 comments:
I love the story about your grandfather and it's a perfect analogy. I love reading your blog every morning, even if - no, especially because - it isn't a perfectly polished, fully formed, insightful essay. It's fun to see the thought processes in action. Thanks!
Perhaps this is obvious, but in a challenging way, a blog is like one side of a dialogue. You make a statement, and it provokes response. The difference is that if you are sitting in a room with a group of people, and you verbalize a statement, each person in the room will have a different take on your comment. They might all respond at once and they might agree with you, disagree, or want to elaborate or editorialize on what you said, and hearty discussion could ensue. With a blog, the audience may be much wider, but you are at the mercy of those of us who choose to respond, and that response is in writing— documented seemingly forever. In a conversation, you may listen to an interpretation of your original premise, and then if necessary, say: “Gee, that wasn’t really what I meant. Let me clarify” or “It’s not that I don’t love technology, it’s just that I was noticing how much it has changed us as a culture” and the conversation would go on from there. You don’t have that immediate back and forth luxury with a blog— unless you want to spend all day responding to those that respond to you. (Oh, it occurs to me that in a way, a blog is part of our on demand culture to which you couldn’t possibly ever respond to “on demand”--but I digress--)
What I am trying to say Amy, is that every night you are putting yourself out there, and not everyone is going to agree with you, or you might not get things across in the perfect way you wanted. But hear this. Your writing is terrific, and even if those reading Seven Hundred and Fifty Words take something different than what you intended to say, you are provoking thought in all of us. Keep up the good work.
Two more comments:
The description of your grandfather teaching you to draw is phenomenal, and:
Best of luck with the hiding the candy thing--wait until you have to change your hiding place so many times that you can’t remember where you hid it!
"I think writing is like this, or should be: adding layers of tissue paper and sketching again on top of what you have--but in order to do this you have to have something to start with."
beautiful and so apt. some very thoughtful descriptions of and analogies to the writing process here. it makes me think you are a real writer, and would also be a very good teacher.
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