I like writing. I enjoy stringing random letters together that when read from left to right and top to bottom sometimes make coherent thoughts. And when read in the same way as mentioned before, on even more rare occasions, make halfway decent points. I recently read a popular writer that said you should write because you like it and you're good at it. One of those two things is true of me. I'm not sure if the other will ever be true. I hope that a year from now I can re-read this and say man that was bad, because that will mean I have gotten better. I'm not really sure why I want to be a better writer, I just do. So now I blog.
If you read my blog, be warned: There will be a lot of terrible first drafts. In fact, the finished product may always be a crappy first draft, but hey, it's my crappy first draft. And that makes all the difference.
Robert Frost was wrong. The thing that made the difference wasn't that he took the road less traveled by, but the fact that it was HIS journey. Who cares if you've traveled the same path as everyone else, or a different path, or if you're even using the same map. What matters is the traveling part. And I was born with a suitcase in my hand, which was probably difficult for my mother, but I've always liked the traveling part. So I'm going to start walking. If your path parallels or crosses mine from time to time, cool. If not, that's okay too.
Mostly I'm just looking for therapy through writing. The more I read about writers, I'm finding that is the reason that all of them write. There is something about putting thoughts down on paper, even digital paper, that is freeing. I'm still trying to work out what that means.
In the end, writing is constantly traveling to find truth. For the best writers, writing and the truth are the same thing. That's what I hope to find in the yellow wood. My truth. I want to be a better writer, so that I can consistently write from the truth. So I'm going to see if I can find it somewhere in here. I'm not sure if my path has been well traveled, is covered in overgrowth, or if I'm even in the woods. But I'm traveling.
1 comment:
Hm. I wasn't sure how you were going to pull off disagreeing with Robert Frost, but you may have convinced me.
Maybe.
True, Frost's poem could be spun any number of ways to encompass the very thought you've expressed here; that the road less traveled IS all the difference because only you can take your path.
There's a Tibetan proverb that I'll paraphrase which perhaps offers insight: "The things of the world are not there unless you see them, and even if you do not see them, still others are finding wonderful things."
The path you travel, the one you see and walk down might not actually be there for someone else, and that can make all the difference. Even still, it's not only the road you travel that changes along the journey, but the traveler as well. The traveler makes the road, if he is any sort of decent traveler.
At any rate, I'm glad you have decided to write. Who knows what roads it will show you?
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