What is it about Writing?

I spoke with a dear friend yesterday. We had an offensively generative conversation about publishing creative work. Quite frankly, it went against everything I know and made this journey a whole lot more intimidating. The way the conversation unfolded — the questions, the pushback, the love — drew up things that were buried deep in my heart, but it asked something of me that I could not understand.

This is my response.

Early in the conversation, Ben asked me, "What is it about writing for you?"

We hashed it out further. What he meant was:

Is writing a hobby, a skill, a supplemental tool adjacent to your work?

Or...

Is writing a response to the call of the muse, or God, or beauty, that is your unique contribution to the world?

The latter seemed grandiose. Or it did for me. But it grew roots as we discussed the difference between Productivity and Art.

Both Productivity and Art intend to create something. While Productivity has a particular end in mind, I'm not so sure about Art.

I have spent a lot of time operating in the way of Productivity. I graduated university with a marketing degree — but you don't have to spend 4 years in college to know that everything in this world is asking something of you. Much of what I have written, designed, or created has been with a particular end in mind.

Only by contrast, by being encouraged to “ship bad work”, have I begun to understand the Artist’s approach to creativity.

Ben publishes bad blog posts so that he can eventually arrive at a good blog post. More broadly, he invites bad ideas so eventually, the good ideas will shine through.

This approach seems tied to the second option… writing as a “response to the call of the muse, or God, or beauty, that is your unique contribution to the world”.

It presumes no goal, no audience, no return. It is a pure response to something deeper.

The idea of "something deeper" is terribly hard to put words to, and for me, it's not as simple as "God's calling on my life." But as of late, metaphor in the form of mythology has brought fresh language and images to the doorstep of my mind.

I will have to explore those in a future post.

Because for now, I have to respond. There is something offensive about this and it is generative. It creates something. It gives something. If not to anyone else, to me. It is pointed, sharp, straight to the soul of the issue.

That which I could not bear yesterday has been understood by showing up to type these very words.