Two views

"My advice is to start reading and writing and looking and listening. Pay less attention to yourself than to what is outside you and if you must write about yourself, get a good distance away and judge yourself with a stranger's severity." - Flannery O'Conner.

"Writing is a form of personal freedom. It frees us from the mass identity we see all around us. In the end, writers will write not to be outlaw heroes of some under culture but mainly to save themselves, to survive as individuals." - Don DeLilo.

Why do we write? Writing a BLOG or a journal or writing to someday get published. It is the same question as "why would one choreograph, sculpt, paint, or create anything really?" I mean, if I wasn't a choreographer I would think it was the most absurd thing, stringing steps together to make a dance!! Why? You're not saving a life here. And yet it is the most meaningful way I spend my time, which is why I keep doing it. And writing is the same. Why string words together, except for utilitarian purposes, "Please pass the potatoes."? Why do I even write this BLOG? The whole idea of blogging is absurd, really? But it fills a need. For some, that need is to understand yourself or others better, for some it is to communicate to others, for some it is personal therapy....the list goes on.

As I fumble with the practice of writing, a task I do not gracefully dance my way through, I think of form, style, and all the elements of writing. To find one's voice in writing is an interesting process. One I have not arrived at yet. And so this is my question, from the two quotes above, what do you think is more true? Do we need to go more inside ourselves or outside ourselves to be a good writer? Do we pay more or less attention to ourselves to write well?

I don't know if I could write if I negated myself, just as I don't think I'd be able to dance if I negated myself. I love reading fiction and often imagine scenario's, and yet I can't imagine becoming a different person and being convincing in this. Maybe this is why I could never act. And if this is the case for writing, then I could never write. Sometimes I wonder if I need to distance myself from who I am? Do I put myself in a box? Am I so familiar with my ways, that I am predictable? Do I need to surprise myself? Let go and find new parts of myself that are there, become a stranger to myself.