Monday, January 07, 2008

Why did I decide to become a writer?

Why did I think I would like to be a writer in the first place? Perhaps this is not a question that many aspirant writers ask themselves enough. There are those who can say with great confidence that they never made a decision to write, that this was in a sense made for them at an early age. They have been writing since they first learned to scrape crayon against paper – it is part of the essential essence of who they are. Fair enough, I envy you. There are others, like myself, who came to this decision later in life, maybe much later, maybe too late. For us there needs to be some reason why we claim to have discovered this sudden creative urge that has seemingly troubled us little in our lives up until now. There must be a reason why we could sail through our adolescence without stringing more than a couple of words together, a reason why we could move into higher education and beyond by doing just what was expected of us and little more (and writing, by that stage, was certainly not what was expected). Then one day we think that we would rather be writers than insurance salesmen or short-order chefs or cleaners or lawyers or whatever god-awful predicament we’ve found ourselves in. Why is this? Why do we (by which, of course, I mean I) give such idle dreams any more credence than a wish to become an astronaut?

Terence J. Crabber famously said that “…if God had desired us to roam this Earth constipated in the gut and spirit, he would not have provided us with the bounty that is figs…” (The Chronicle of Figs, Wernstein & Wernstein (1911). London. Page 343). Fair enough, but what does that have to do with the question in hand? Well there are several commentaries on this section that see a wider message in these fairly prosaic and derivative lines. Many of these interpret the aphorism as “if God had wished us to remain silent he would not have given us mouths” (cf. “The Exegesis of Introductions – the purpose and form of introductory passages in the Chronicle of Figs” – Stephen Jones PhD, Ficus Press (1973). London). In this tradition it is being argued that figs, here, represent man’s unique ability to speak and that this allows us to differentiate ourselves from other fig-eating animals by allowing us to release descriptions of the thoughts (here “spirit”) that form our cognition of the world as we perceive it.

Of course most readers of The Chronicle will know that, contextually, it is more consistent to equate the figs of The Chronicle with the epistemological hypostasis of mind. However, Jones ignores this reading because it makes the interpretation awkward and possibly meaningless (it becomes something like “if God had wanted us to remain silent he would not have given us minds”). However, as Samuel Pygott and Charles Crone point out in their short but excellent biography of Crabber (Extracting The Man of Figs – Discovering TJ Crabber in the Chronicle of Figs, Lodestar Press (1975). Dublin), much of the early sections of The Chronicle were written by Crabber in an inn called The Gut & Spirit where he had temporary lodgings before he moved to Kent on the inheritance he gained through the death of this father. This gives us a much easier reading of the passage which now becomes “…if God had not wanted us to write, he would not have given us minds”. The significance for my current predicament becomes thereby immediately apparent – if the route was somewhat unnecessary and tortuous.

[Of course there is a third tradition that suggests that both interpretations are somewhat misguided but I have no space to go into that now (if you are interested in exploring this viewpoint you could try the highly polemical “Its Just About Bloody Figs, You Idiots!” – Percy Thrower, BBC Publications (1976), London).]

Anyhow, the essence of what Crabber seems to be telling us is that there is some deep connection between our mind and our need, or desire, to write. Not just in the obvious sense that you need a mind before you can write but in the sense that through the act of writing you discover your mind and the true nature of your thoughts. With writing the mind will flourish and grow fruitful like the fig tree. Without writing your mind atrophies, thoughts become stunted and not well rooted.

So there we have Reason One: I decided to become a writer to avoid the mental atrophy that I feared was otherwise the likely outcome of my lifestyle.

Fair enough, I have often stated as much in the past when questioned on such matters (though, more often than not, without going through the whole fig rigmarole as a precursor). I just happen to think that this cannot be true or at least not entirely true or even largely true. It sounds too honourable and intellectual to be sincere. It lacks any visceral and immediate necessity, it is more akin to the reasoning that someone may adopt for taking vitamin supplements or eating more fresh fruit and vegetables. It is all very worthy but doesn’t smack of anything that is truly human. It is the sort of reasoning that casts around our conscious minds masquerading as the truth, to stop us thinking further, to distract us from trying to open some of those heavy, rusted doors that hide away our subconscious mind and the creatures that lurk in dark corners there, shunning the light of enquiry. And it could be that it is these creatures that secretly control everything we do, that spirit up ideas of taking up writing and such like. Perhaps it is with these that I must converse and leave behind the deceptive world of the conscious mind.

So my quest must continue. I must trudge further through this netherworld of Tartarus Central in the hope that I will get closer to the truth. I might try to open a few doors. Maybe I can discover why I decided to try to become a writer. Maybe, in discovering this I will understand better whether there was any sincerity and noble purpose to it or whether it was no more than vanity and self-deception. Maybe I’ll discover a bit more about myself. Now I wonder what’s down this corridor…

5 comments:

Dale said...

Martin, it won't shock but may appall you to learn that I find much to relate to in this post and the one preceding it -- both in the questions you've posed and in the answers you've sketched. I've been drafting a mental draft to reckon with the topics, and I expect it will show sooner or later on my precious, precious blog.

For now, I have little to add to that, but I wanted to let you know you have wandered into what at least one reader (and surely more) considers to be interesting territory.

Martin R. said...

Thanks, Dale. I look forward to catching up with your conclusions on your blog (which is a place I visit on a daily basis). Whether I reach any conclusions or not I cannot predict at this stage. The more I think about it the more involved it becomes and with it the danger of my posts becoming even longer and more rambling. Ho, hum.

Dale said...

Hey there Martin -- It turns out I am finding myself utterly blocked on how to write about this. Isn't that metonymy or something?

So I will simply say that whatever you do in the way of becoming (or not) A Bona Fide Writer, or A Professional Writer, or A Writer of Some Repute, or whatever, I hope you will continue writing this blog because I enjoy reading it.

Martin R. said...

Thanks, as always, Dale. I will return to this topic. I am an infrequent blogger, at best, and the current hiatus should end just as soon as I find a few moments to think this through further.

Ginger said...

It would seem you people are contagious! Take your blockage germs and get away from me, please (kidding). I have come to this post with the intent to comment several times yet every time find myself frozen.

I am not a true writer. Even if I actually accomplish my goal of writing a novel, and it somehow makes it into published form (doubtful), I will not be a true writer. I am taking the easy way out by writing a romance. A nice, light, fluffy bit of a daydream. And I'm doing this because I lack the necessary courage to write something more meaningful. Well, that and because I thought it would be a nice (realistic) way to warm up to something deeper, to take the pressure off so I will actually, and simply, just start writing.