Why I Write
The ideal writing place is wherever I am
There are times when I stare at my computer screen full of words and wonder what I find rewarding about this pursuit. I mean, I love to write, or rather, I love it when something in my writing works out, captures something, or conveys an idea or image that matters to me, or someone. Unfortunately it is often a fruitless pursuit because no matter how hard I toil over these lines, they seem to have ideas of their own, wanting to line up in their own formations and march in a different pattern than I’m commanding. Words are rambunctious self indulgent assholes, temperamental, and often oppose my demands. On the other hand, they are my escape, my freedom, my rebellion.
The act of writing is both physical and emotional, and involves flow, the uninterrupted stream of consciousness and ideas that coalesce around words, language. When it works it’s a pathway out of hell, or rather, a way of describing hell that brings others in with you. When it doesn’t work, when the flow is broken, it becomes a different version of hell, where the expression either surrenders to cliche and hyperbole, or worse, inchoate vibes that simulate meaning and story but are really just bullshit. It’s like AI writing, a hallucination designed to make me feel good about myself.
Trial archives. Writing about the law
All of that is about being a writer and the battles we all have with the imperfect and often clunky creative process that tumbles words from our brains, through the funnel of a pen to page. If you read about my arrest, you’ll know the basics of what happened to me, but if I expose my fear, anxiety, and the textured experience of being accused and jailed, you'll experience something intimate and personal that sticks. Then, when I read it aloud, you’ll hear all of those troubled realities in my voice.
One thing I’ve not written much about is an ugly impulse I have to be petty about the people that orchestrated this mess. Friends have asked me why I haven’t been more forceful, loud and aggressive in calling them out. After all, they continue living without any repercussions, enjoying a life in which they rarely think about me at all. I, on the other hand, churn daily, forever writing and rewriting about this, because to not write is to let the noxious fumes load, like being locked in a garage with the car running, eventually it will fucking kill me. Anger can be motivating, but without constraint, it can turn a person brittle and numb.