The Scrivener's Jest

I have never been a wholesome writer. I used to see that as a challenge in my writing. I just wrote a fairly wholesome piece about a old man, and honestly it feels dead flat and false to me. I don't expect it to do well. I can write about quotidian things. There is something deeply fascinating and somewhat surreal about a narrow focus on the odd rituals that we do daily. I am always better when I am writing in darker veins or focusing on the pleasures and pains of a life lived. I can write a thousand words in a moment on love and loss and all the chaos that comes with it. Ask me to write a pleasant story or some slice-of-life, and I am pretty much out unless I can really twist it in some way.

I used to think this was just a part of my writing, but I think it is just a part of me. This isn't special. I think a lot of us are far less wholesome than we sometimes appear. I feel it in my writing, though. There is a difference between fiction and falsity. Fiction is the story, Falsity is the voice. I can craft a work, make it poem or prose, and bend it to fit into genre, form, or constraint. It may not be good, but it is fun. Crafting works that are not from my voice often feels like forgery. My creations, in some respect, but made to fit someone else.

This isn't to say that there isn't value in the exercise. The piece I wrote today was good practice. We need to push our comfort zones and press our voice. These aren't publications, they are friendly pieces shared as experiments. Some will hit, others won't. That is the point. For me, it was an interesting realization,a and a gentle reminder that I need to be true to that voice even when it makes others uncomfortable.

That perhaps, is the more direct lesson for me, here. One of the reasons I shy away from submissions is vulnerability. My voice exposed for judgment and dismissal. I have fielded enough rejections that you think it would be old hat by now. It never is.