I remember back in college one of my English professors gave us an assignment that seemed far too easy. He offered us something to read, can't remember what it was, but the instructions were: write something if you're inspired. And if you're not inspired, please don't write anything. Whether you write something or don't write anything, you get an A either way.
Huh?
To our late-adolescent minds this was simply too good to be true.
The subsequent line of questioning between students and prof then went something like this:
You mean we don't have to do the assignment?
Well, read the piece.
And do we have to write a response?
Only if one is elicited by the text.
And if not?
Then don't write anything. Just turn in a paper with your name and course information.
And we still get an A, no matter what we write, or whether we write at all?
Yes.
He then went onto explain that the process of literary response is just that--response. It's not about compiling a heap of rubbish and putting it into sentences, uniting it into a crafty paragraph with the most eloquent verbiage possible. It's not about digging digging, and when nothing is found, imagining, concocting connections that never existed, effusing emotions that never were felt, presenting ideas that were never believed.
So you mean all this bs-ing that we English majors pride ourselves on being able to do, is just that? A waste of our time?
His revelation to us was that it wasn't only a waste of our time, but of his, and more shamefully, a waste of the text.
And so, that has stuck with me. When writing, don't eek something out if that something does not emerge organically. The most poignant responses and impactful musings are those that make themselves known--those that indeed existed even before the text came along! Texts of all sorts (life, music, art, writing, film, and more) should rile up responses that were already in the making, should emote emotions whose inceptions are already rooted--in both the writer and the reader.
And so, this blog. As I sit pondering what to write about, what subjects to analyze, which to ignore, how often to write, which audience to cater to, I come back to the lesson learned in that too-good-to-be-true assignment: don't write what you don't believe. Or conversely, write what you do believe. Respond to the text (quite a broad text in my case seeing as how I plan to write about whatever moves me), in a way that's true to you.
What do you think about this statement?
Writing is an act of truth.
