What Writing Is For Me

Writing is something different for everyone.

“Who wants to become a writer? And why? Because it’s the answer to everything. … It’s the streaming reason for living. To note, to pin down, to build up, to create, to be astonished at nothing, to cherish the oddities, to let nothing go down the drain, to make something, to make a great flower out of life, even if it’s a cactus.”
—Enid Bagnold

“Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.”
—George Orwell

“Know your literary tradition, savor it, steal from it, but when you sit down to write, forget about worshiping greatness and fetishizing masterpieces.”
—Allegra Goodman

Sometimes writing as a craft terrifies me. Some believe that to write well you not only have to write from your soul, you have to write away your soul. You have to have an unhappy childhood to draw from. You have to die in the gutter like the reincarnation of Edgar Allan Poe. You have to bleed for the art and die for the art.

I, personally, am not that dramatic. For me, once writing ceases to be enjoyable, it ceases to be meaningful. Now I'm not saying its always easy. I am still young and haven't devoted myself to a career in writing, I don't depend on it for a living or emotional fulfillment at this point in my life. Writing can be boring sometimes, when I come to it uninspired. It can be frustrating when I feel like I am giving my all and creating garbage. It can be terrifying, when I want to remain content and live un-examined for a short while. But in the end, it is peaceful when I do it how and when I ought and want to do it. 

When I was young, all I ever read was fantasy. I loved fantasy. I was enchanted by the worlds created in other authors minds. I absorbed the laws of magical universes and with them a strong hope and optimism for the world around me. Because one thing about fantasy, at least the kind written for children, is there is usually a hero. There is usually some sort of light magic to balance out the dark, and there is always an intense urge to roll back the clouds coming in and see the sun again. I have inherited that urge, that desire for there to be a world where beautiful coincidences happen and the thunder and lightning can always be held at bay by enough love and enough bravery. I know that I don't live in that world, but I do believe in heroes, sometimes to a fault. I believe in people that devote their lives to helping others and I hope one day to be one of those people. I hope one day to be braver and kinder than I am anything else.

For a while I was afraid to write fantasy. I felt like it was silly or stupid, that it wasn't professional and I would never be a good writer if I wrote about things that could never be true, if I unabashedly created my own universes. But while I can write realistically and I do, fantasy is a part of me. It has been since I first began to wander the library shelves looking for enchanting books to take home. Someday I hope to write stories that will teach children to believe in the world just like the books that I devoured as a child taught me.

So for me, writing is escape. I don't think I will ever be a starving artist or a tortured writer. Hopefully, I will be a happy person who writes for the love of it. Maybe that makes me unworthy to call myself a writer. I don't think so. The stories and poems that I create when I am inspired to contain so much more of my soul and self than the ones that I force myself to write. It's like writing with a pen that has no ink, scratching the words into the paper. Isn't it better to wait for the pen to be full, and to write when the words come flowing out? Writing can be as much a gift to yourself as it is a gift to the world. It can be healing, enlightening, fun, and relaxing. It can help the world become clear, or it can clear your mind. 

So for all the writers out there who feel like the enjoyment of writing isn't good enough, it is. It's the enjoyment of it and the love of it that make it worthwhile. I hope someday that people will read what I write and that it will be meaningful to them, but above all I want it to be truthful to who I am, and add to rather than subtract from my life.




Quotes from Writer's Digest
http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/there-are-no-rules/72-of-the-best-quotes-about-writing

Turning Fiction Upside Down

Here is a short story*:

Jermaine's Postscript to His Seventh-Grade Poem Assignment

• Marjorie Agosin

• Lydia Davis

• David Gaffney

By: Christoffer Molnar

Ms. Tyler, the girl part was about Shantell. Please don't tell anyone.

How can that be a story? There is no exposition, rising action, climax, nothing. All it gives you is an emotion, a glimpse into the longing and embarrassment of a sensitive boy. This story could have been told in the form of a short story, a novel, or a picture book. But adding back-story and details might have distracted from its heart. Anyone can relate to a seventh-grade crush, and fill in the holes with their own experiences, their own awkward adolescence, and their own perceptions of love.

Apparently, the attention spans of "today's children" have been hacked away by television and instant gratification to about the size of a peanut. You can barely fit a comic book in there, let alone Moby Dick or the dictionary. So when people write stories as short as Molnar's, are they playing into the culture of never focusing long enough, and fitting their stories into said peanut-sized attention spans?

First, let's take a look at flash fiction. The definition of flash fiction is simply a very short story. Definitions of its required length range from six to 1000 words, but basically if you write something that can be easily consumed in one sitting that is too short to be considered a full short story, then it is flash fiction. The names for flash fiction are varied and enchanting. Postcard fiction, microrelatos, short short stories, miniatures, micronouvelles, hint fiction, Kürzestgeschichten. I went to a seminar on flash fiction in which a teacher told me that one Japanese author calls very short stories "stories that can fit in the palm of your hand." I have never been able to find this author or this quote again, but I think it perfectly captures what flash fiction is. Small, precious, and smooth. The question is, if people began to write their stories shorter and shorter, would that mean they were playing to the world that TV has created, and abandoning the integrity of literature?

I would say no. Sometimes, attention span and length have nothing to do with each other. The Junie B. Jones books are longer than some of David Gaffney's 150 word stories, but which one will hold the attention of a kindergartner? It's true that a bite-sized story can be consumed far more quickly than a novel. But oftentimes the meaning is far harder to digest. To truly appreciate flash fiction, one must spend time with it, read it more than once, truly ponder and feel it. This is not work for those who crave instant gratification.

Flash fiction reflects an urge to boil writing down to nothing but emotion or meaning, to start a story in the middle and end it before it ends. Edgar Allan Poe believed that anything that could not be read in one sitting could not be fully enjoyed. Palm-sized stories leave a taste in your mouth, a sensation on your skin, plant a thought in your mind. I love reading books and novels, but flash fiction brings something new to the table. Writing so succinctly is not the act of "dumbing down" literature. It's introducing a new genre of immediacy and lingering thoughts.

If you are interested in exploring these stories (it's easy to make time for), here are some authors known for their bite-sized works that I learned about in the seminar I attended:

Flash fiction can also be found in copious amounts online. The following articles on flash fiction include its history, some examples and instructions on writing it yourself:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/may/14/how-to-write-flash-fiction

http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/03/short-and-sweet-reading-and-writing-flash-fiction/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_fiction

*This story came from the second link, a New York Times article on teaching children how to write flash fiction. It was originally printed in The New Yorker.

Welcome!

Kay + Leigh = Kayleigh
I was named after the song by Marillion. Whether it's true or not, my dad told me that the singer loved two girls, named Kay and Leigh, and wrote the song for both of them. 

My name is Kayleigh and I'm a junior in high school. My passion is writing. I'm not always good at it, because when I was young people always told me I was good at it. Every time I sat down with a pen and paper I would feel the pressure of all of them telling me to write something amazing, and if I didn't, I felt like I was letting them down. But when I relax and let myself be inspired, writing is what I enjoy most in the world. I write stories, articles, even poems. And I am an avid reader as well, so this blog is about showing you the amazing kinds of writers there are out there, the amazing things to read, and what is on the cutting edge of the art of writing. 

I hope you love my blog!
Sincerely,
Kay and Leigh