Writing As A Destined Craft.

Dec 15, 2006 @ 8:38pm

Writing as a Destined Craft.

I’ve been talking a lot about writing in the past few weeks, and it got me thinking about professions in general. Adults in a specific field, do they display common traits or personal prerequisites for the means in which they now make their living?

I know I was a very observant child. I had my friends in elementary school, those whom eventually moved away one by one and left me in a senior year with no confidants, but I was always thinking, watching and trying to figure things out in my mind. Why did David like Ani? Why was Justin popular when Eric wasn’t? Why did Michelle get into trouble while Vince was barely recognized as an integral member of our class? I noticed reasons on why certain people where friends while others just didn’t mesh well together. I was very analytical in my personal silent way. I left my elementary school for a high school where none of my French speaking classmates attended. Without a starting social group, I watched even more. All of a sudden there were more people, and my shyness halted that easy conversation that others sometimes take for granted.

I’ve always been fascinated with the thinking process and why some are better at it than others. Some people have more complex ideas while others have to have simple things explained to them from different angles. Mr. Bunting, my academic English teacher and one of my most respected profs, once explained: “I have absolutely no doubt that there are students sitting at the desks in front of me that are intellectually capable of outsmarting some of my department colleagues”. He went on to talk about how experience is one thing, but there are people that (although earn degrees and such) still don’t apply their life lessons previously experienced to future ideas or actions. Some have a more lethargic thought process, while others have a quick witted sense of humour. Those with less life experience can pull or soak up lessons lived by friends, family members and those whom surround them if they have, and practiced the mindset to do so.

While attending my last year of secondary school (when I moved out and did my last year in a different town) I had begun with psychology and sociology courses, which I continued with excitement and hunger once in college. I thought that I must have been searching for something watching people as much as I did all my life. I learned a great deal in those classes, theories which I’m always thankful to know now. I remember sitting on the curb during a past Pride festival, talking to a friend saying “look at these colourful people, I wonder what they do during the day, what they’re like at their jobs, what do their family members know them as”. Even knowing that answers to these questions had no impact on my personal life whatsoever, I still wondered.

To this day I’m not exactly sure where I picked up certain words, or how my vocabulary has evolved to be what it is now. I don’t precisely know how my seasoned language skills have grown but I have no doubt it’s mostly due to reading and paying attention to detail. I’ve heard many times “when I read what you post I feel like I’m watching it, or living what you’re saying”. I take such comments as compliments meaning I’ve succeeded in putting into words what I see or think. A boring idea can be made interesting by auditioning words. Sometimes I take a time out in mid-sentence to think about “does this say or depict what I see in my head”?, and “is this what I choose or want others to see?”.

Success is measured in the context that if a goal (set only by the writer) is achieved. Most of my prose is written to provoke emotion, a common ambition of writers regardless of experience or age. By getting the reader to “live” the story, then in my eyes, I’ve succeeded. The opinion of if it’s a good story or not is yet another facet of creative writing.

A good friend of mine told me this past summer “I’m so glad you’re able to just put everything down and come to my town to have fun”. I thought about that for a moment, like I’ve done with countless shallow theories, and figured that if I didn’t go out and live, see and watch then what would I write about? When I get to the point I where feel I have to scrape ideas from the rim of my mind, it’s time to travel. Even if by “travel” I mean a night somewhere else, the time comes I need to get out…to just go.

This is why I like the unexpected. As long as I’m safe, in the company of people I trust and my family can contact me at any time they want, I need to be free. I ended up in Niagara Falls Ontario last weekend with a small group of friends watching the famous Christmas lights display. I arrived on time to work on Monday and I had relieved that itch I get for the open road and to simply observe. A writer with nothing to write about isn’t a writer at all.

So with working, going out, being social and observing, comes new ideas. Ideas for articles, for stories, and for thought-provoking prose. With practise, reading, and paying attention; a vocabulary, grammatical and language skills can be sculpted to suit whatever the mind wants. Put these two divisions together, add the desire to grow and expand, and you’ve got what might one day be defined as a good writer.

End 9:12pm

~Rayne D’Wire/2006