On Writing

The painter brings life to a canvas with masterful strokes from his brush.  The musician creates landscapes with his sonorous tones and delectable harmonies.  The writer however, weaves his words, just as a spider would weave its web.

I am not a good writer.  I am however, an improving writer.  If I were a spider, my web-weaving abilities would be placed at a rudimentary level.

Writing is never writing.  Writing is rewriting.  It always is.  It is renewal.  That is the reason why writing is so difficult.  It requires immense concentration and discipline to be a good writer.  I admit that I lack those two qualities.

The one thing I am deathly afraid of when it comes to writing is when I cannot convey my thoughts with words. To make up for the lack of quality, I use quantity.  Henceforth, my writing looks impressive due to its bombastic superficiality and length, but lacks direction and meaning.  For example, if I were to write "the cat, feeling as if its personal boundaries were encroached upon by the irksome intentions of the mouse, was aroused by such extreme aggression that it proclaimed its initial impulse through a rather unorthodox negotiation which consequentially removed the mouse from its existence," no one would have known that I actually meant "The mouse pissed off the cat, so the cat killed the mouse."  This sort of writing really, really annoys me and most people.  It's a tangled web of words.

However, I adore subtlety.  Let me cite an example.  "You called down the thunder, now reap the whirlwind."
A perfect metaphor for a nuclear strike.  Damn, that quote just runs chills down my back whenever I read it.  It's very simple.  Anyone can read it and understand it, yet it holds so much meaning.  Ahem, I am NOT endorsing nuclear warfare by any means.  I just picked the quote because it just impressed me so.

I wish to write concisely and subtly at the same time.  However, being concise requires analysis and being subtle requires creativity.  Analysis and creativity do not always go hand in hand, because it is difficult to be analytical while being creative, and vice versa.

Analysis requires concentration.  Creativity requires exploration.  The master writer takes analysis and creativity together an forms an alloy of the two.  That alloy conceives great, beautiful writing.  And if I could do that someday, I'd be the happiest guy on Earth.  No joke.