As you know, writing is a personal expression, an intimate art form between you and essentially, your mind–but let’s go deeper than this; passionate writers hope to go beyond such boundaries, that is to say, where the provocation, or toppling the scales of your sanity, into the paradigms of your insanity, exists. The S and P words. An even split down the middle. Sometimes, one scale dominates the other and vice versa; such is the mode of writing: the management of scales; the best of any writing is in fact when the scales are left unbalanced.

Story is life and as such, we all know we can never be in full control of it, be it our own and others. Likewise with writing, it should always emulate this realm of unexpectancy that naturally follows, or rather, flows through life’s embering wormholes. Life is unexpected, uncontrollable, untamable, like the rancour of nature’s ocean waves. The conventions of stories embody their own forms of this idea, too. We find that some stories are short, some are long, some are falling asleep as the book slips out of your hands and onto the floor, long. But all in all, they are stories, and just like life, all tell a different kind of one. 

However, for us all, life certainly begins short, sweet, sometimes smelly, and if we’re unlucky, also cheap, pretty much. Certainly for an infant who can probably see miraculous things and has a communicative soul, but just can’t seem to communicate this wonder with us, maybe life does seem cheap after all… It’s as we grow, so as we continue reading through each word, sentence, punctuation and paragraph, to the next page, the next segments, more layers of content, and eventually, more pages, newer chapters, that our short-lived story becomes somewhat deeper, fuller, rich with more context, more understanding, more sense of life and the world around us; our character, plural, why we are here, what we are doing, and ultimately where we want to go versus where we should be going; and of course, where we want to end up versus where we inevitably do–and that is, whether we like it or not. This is a story. Thus, this is life. So it is clear, life begins short. Impactful. And hopefully if done right, it can be an extension of longevity, seeming or otherwise, and most of all, memorable. Memory and lasting. This can be our first lesson.

Preparation. The application of this into writing simply means detail and point. Nowadays, especially in contemporary writing, a lot of stories’ essences fall prey to the overwhelming need to satisfy demand, and thereby money. As a result, a lot of the literature’s message is sometimes lost in pursuit of this glory. So instead, we want to take a step back, plenty, and revisit the humble beginnings of why we like to write, and what we will want to, in the first place. 

Until next time, wishing you the write kind of writings!

Written by Marisa Paulson, London.