tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3757067101685257497.post8133693548707229224..comments2010-09-18T06:58:49.825-04:00Comments on Martha Nichols Online: Writing Boundaries—When Do I Cross Them?Martha Nicholshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02125887259454036708noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3757067101685257497.post-16623953579832650732010-01-15T14:20:46.149-05:002010-01-15T14:20:46.149-05:00Most of the time, people (by which I mean non-writ...Most of the time, people (by which I mean non-writers) should listen to their inner voices, especially when the inner voice advises more diplomacy or "pulling back of punches."<br /><br />Writers, on the other hand, often are more sensitive than said people: for example, becoming circumspect and even overly symbolic, perhaps for diplomacy's sake, perhaps for nuance, in order to rise above the petty. In doing so, writers often err on the side of treating their audience more sensitively than even the audience would want to be treated. (Of course, some bloggers do not suffer from over-sensitivity.) So, that is my take: The main dynamic is rarely between writer and subject, more often among a writer and her readers.<br /><br />Your reflection about lag time is also interesting. If you believe in the river of Heraclitus, then you yourself become a reader of your own writing, provided you allow yourself at least a day or so of pause. Even as a writer of software (for which design is paramount), I need to be my own reviewer by letting time separate myself from the intense love of my work.Markhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15286928141020837185noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3757067101685257497.post-44519843849308389892010-01-13T23:38:50.850-05:002010-01-13T23:38:50.850-05:00Laurie, this a beautiful comment and full of all s...Laurie, this a beautiful comment and full of all sorts of evocative threads. You're right that this post worked because I made myself vulnerable in it, and when I do so, I'm in the zone with my writing. But all sorts of barriers come up when I write about others in a way that makes them vulnerable--and while it does restrain me, I think showing restraint in making such work public is the ethical thing to do. I'm not in Norman Mailer's camp on this one.<br /><br />It's very clear to me that I was right not to publish the piece I mentioned. I can also see that it's not working yet as a piece of writing. Too many punches have been pulled; the drama is undercut because of all that isn't explained and the self-protectiveness of my voice.<br /><br />If and when I'm able to expose myself in this particular piece, then it will cohere--and it will be something I can publish without feeling guilt. That's the wonderful irony of all this.Martha Nicholshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02125887259454036708noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3757067101685257497.post-39118361404375985162010-01-13T14:21:12.718-05:002010-01-13T14:21:12.718-05:00Ironically, Martha, I think this might be your bes...Ironically, Martha, I think this might be your best blog to date. You are skating over the whole hemisphere of writing, regardless of where, or in what format, the writing appears. The selection/construction process of the delivered perspective, the inherent blindness and truth in that process, the role of your "real truth and loyalties," and the coy decisions those loyalties extract, are exhausting. In addition, there is the gruesome issue of self-image. Am I writer before I am anything else, including a parent, spouse, or best friend? Should I, as Norman Mailer suggested, do anything you need to do to write a great story? Anything?<br />With autobiographical fiction, a wobbly medium, a hinterland of aesthetics and self-delusion, the quandary isn’t always so much truth, as presenting a truth. The primal effort of selecting the material from life, the right material, to translate the reality you mean to translate, is crucial, and potentially wretchedly disloyal. Everyone's first fiction workshop guru probably told them to write about what you know, but what you know is pretty cluttered. There is a dynamic peephole inside the clutter that will tell the story precisely, but getting there can be one of 100 multiple choice answers. The brain swarms, and gets angry at everything that is complicating and crowding that simple route through truth and beauty. And by the way, was the discarded material a latent form of self-aggrandizement? Did I exclude, in the first person narrator who looks and smells a lot like me, that I am pudgy and pimpled, someone terminally outside of the sweet posse of popular kids? Am I a Thomas Wolfe, writing in that big, bloated, subjective arena of moi? That selection process you describe, for me, is usually the raw essence of writer's block. The potential story is so laden with endless, endless possibilities that I feel like an eleven year old in a very abstract math class. The borders of this morass, this writerly ontology, are simply too nebulous. How many grains of sand, and along those lines, how many ways to tell my heartfelt story?<br /> So...I have no answers to your questions, but I appreciate your questions. They address the many times when a keen native voice, a voice out of nowhere, a voice with judgment and boundaries, won’t take us by the hand a la Virgil and Dante, and escort us through the writing. In those moments, I suggest a little William S. Burroughs, who made great progress in blurring and bypassing the selection process.Laurie Weiszhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18132708530832803723noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3757067101685257497.post-25981360082148636682010-01-11T15:42:33.204-05:002010-01-11T15:42:33.204-05:00I think you're right, Karen, about heeding the...I think you're right, Karen, about heeding the inner voice. I'll also probably be showing the unpublished piece to my writing group because sometimes I'm just too close to tell. That lack of distance in blogging both exhilarates and disturbs me. Then again, that could be just the right stance for creating engaging stories.<br /><br />Thanks, as always, for your support. It means a lot, especially as I wrestle through issues like this.Martha Nicholshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02125887259454036708noreply@blogger.com