Monday, October 13, 2008

Writing and Perfection

It was something that I gradually came to realize, and then grudgingly accept- that I am indeed a writer of limited skill and variety.

Upon reviewing the past few pieces of fiction that I had written, my limitations were obvious. Everything I wrote was of a length shorter than that of a short story, and none of the stories were happy in setting or ending. To express this in another manner, I am only capable of writing short, gloomy tales.

After a brief conversation with a friend, I arrived at the conclusion that my writing was somewhat characteristic of my personality. I have no patience for the bells and whistles, for characterization or description. When I read, my eyes filter the most useless pieces of information and retain only the most concise of statements. One consequence of this is that I have utterly terrible spelling, as I simply do not vocalize the words that I read.

It dismays me that ultimately, I am unable to externalize the tremendously perfect ideas that do exist in my brain. In my head, everything is perfectly visualized, and perfect in character. Viewing the stories is akin to watching a movie or living a scene in life. Yet, translating that vague perfection is difficult, even impossible.

Perhaps one reason why I only write short gloomy tales is that it is much easier than to externalize perfection. The entire point of gloomy tales is to invoke thought, and to encourage philosophy. The mechanism therefore serves the purpose. However, the stories that exist in my head are to invoke perfection, to convey ideals. As such, I avoid writing.

Perhaps when I have acquired sufficient skill and courage will I then attempt to put to paper what I consider to be my most promising ideas. Otherwise, I fear that I will only mar and taint, and hence not do justice to, what would originally be complete and beautiful.

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