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The drive for originality is also a big impediment to writing. On the one hand, we suffer from a sort of transcendental illusion. We (or I) think to ourselves that if we have an idea it can’t possibly be original precisely because the idea is familiar to us. It is not new to us. But writing is not for us, but for others, whether those others be our own future selves or the self we are becoming in the act of writing (writing has the magical power to remake you) or for the others who might read our scratchings on bit of napkins. On the other hand, originality cannot be anticipated. If originality could be anticipated it wouldn’t be originality. Rather, originality follows the logic of Lacan’s tuche or chance encounter. Originality is something that occasionally takes place, but if it does take place it can only be known as having had taken place, it can never be experienced in the moment. We only ever know that originality has taken place retroactively. As a consequence, it’s important to surrender the desire to anticipate originality so as to clear a space in which the event or chance occurrence of originality might take place.
This is totally of the same mind of Nassim Taleb and The Black Swan; reading it now. I highly recommend.
Maybe I’m being unfair to the quote . . . by “the drive for originality” I guess he means obsessiveness with being really original — though even there I’m not sure it’s an impediment to writing, itself. If he’s criticizing ‘originality for originality’s sake’, I can buy that, but there are some of us who grew up with this kind of dearth of literature that really spoke to us, a lack of a literary voice that we could use to get at the heart of what we wanted/needed to say. …This search for a voice is necessary and certainly isn’t something that keeps us from writing, or from writing interesting material.
As for the “future self” as a separate person that you could be writing for, and the ability for writing to ‘change’ a person . . . yeah, I’m not sure to what extent one’s writing can really change a person — or make a person healthier, admittedly (oh, well) — but it’s an interesting idea, and is much more solid… writing not for the self but for the future self… interesting.
…which sort of brings up the Mary Sue phenomenon, I guess.
Looks cool Ken, I’d never heard of it. I’ll order it. THanks.
I don’t think he’s really criticizing anything. Maybe the quote is taken a little out of context. I think he wants to say that it’s not the lack of originality that impedes, but rather the drive to originality that impedes the actual production because it stifles expression, makes us start and restart and ask, “Is what I’m doing original enough? Does it go far enough?” So there is no originality, lack or no lack, before we really have the opportunity to get past the drive toward it.
Well… at heart, artists write not for others but for themselves. Art is very essentially for the self, it’s a means of self-explication, like dreams. It is not entertainment.
Second: were ‘originality’ a “big impediment to writing”, I suppose it’d be a wonder why we aren’t all writing the same way people were writing 500 years ago.
I tend to agree with Gertrude Stein when she says, “I write for myself and for strangers”–I think that’s the quote. That said, I don’t necessarily think writing is like one thing or another, I just happen to think that this quote is pretty cool.
This is totally of the same mind of Nassim Taleb and The Black Swan; reading it now. I highly recommend.
Maybe I’m being unfair to the quote . . . by “the drive for originality” I guess he means obsessiveness with being really original — though even there I’m not sure it’s an impediment to writing, itself. If he’s criticizing ‘originality for originality’s sake’, I can buy that, but there are some of us who grew up with this kind of dearth of literature that really spoke to us, a lack of a literary voice that we could use to get at the heart of what we wanted/needed to say. …This search for a voice is necessary and certainly isn’t something that keeps us from writing, or from writing interesting material.
As for the “future self” as a separate person that you could be writing for, and the ability for writing to ‘change’ a person . . . yeah, I’m not sure to what extent one’s writing can really change a person — or make a person healthier, admittedly (oh, well) — but it’s an interesting idea, and is much more solid… writing not for the self but for the future self… interesting.
…which sort of brings up the Mary Sue phenomenon, I guess. To that end: I’ve never really been all that critical of the wish-fulfillment mindset, myself.
Looks cool Ken, I’d never heard of it. I’ll order it. THanks.
I don’t think he’s really criticizing anything. Maybe the quote is taken a little out of context. I think he wants to say that it’s not the lack of originality that impedes, but rather the drive to originality that impedes the actual production because it stifles expression, makes us start and restart and ask, “Is what I’m doing original enough? Does it go far enough?” So there is no originality, lack or no lack, before we really have the opportunity to get past the drive toward it.
And yeah, based on the Amazon page or whatever, the two do seem to be saying very similar things.
“Some writers confuse authenticity, which they ought always to aim at, with originality, which they should never bother about.” –W. H. Auden
Things I like include the website Larval Subjects. Very cool.
I really like the Auden quote, and I like the quote you’ve given here Alec. So you’re telling me this story I’m working on, even though it seems boring to me, may actually be cool? I really think it will be cool. It’s just a matter of cutting out the boring stuff…