The work of a writer is never truly finished. For all the times I’ve felt I had nothing left worth writing, the world keeps spinning, neurons keep firing off inside my skull, and new connections are made, giving me just one more dose of motivation to craft a few sentences. I can never leave what’s left to stagnate around the periphery of my conscious existence, as eventually these outliers will haunt my unconscious and litter my subconscious with inconvenient distractions.
Even if the aim of my continued labors serve as little more than exercises to put words together in an ever so slightly different fashion than you may expect them to be, the fruits have already made themselves visible. Within the writer’s corner of my mind, the youthful curiosity has never quite diminished even when overshadowed by the cynicism brought on by midlife crises coming a bit ahead of schedule. Those notions often discarded by those who stay the course of a sense of duty to the normal miss out on intellectual realms rarely explored.
Even as I’ve continued steady growth as a writer, I still fear that while my product may be adequate, I feel as if the words could still somehow be better chosen, ordered, or presented. For all the countless revisions I’ve made in my written work, I seem incapable of making the necessary edits to my hard wired programming to finally feel good enough to deserve the gifts bestowed upon me.
Perhaps the layered complexities I now add to my prose were once a form of showing off my talents for the sake of being noticed; but now, what’s there is meant to be there for its own sake. There is no hidden agenda other than my hope that one who reads my work will set themselves to deciding for themselves what it means to them, not necessarily taking the words at face value alone, but for also what they could mean when interpreted by a mind not my own. Such is the wondrous nature of language, and how it changes forms ever so slightly over time, yet so swiftly gains unfamiliar forms foreign to those born just decades before.
The inherent awkwardness of first drafts causes them to invariably be called rough. Yet, it is these first attempts that are the most pure effort of putting thought into imperfect word forms. Every effort made afterward is an attempt to build upon, but not necessarily perfect, something that likely will never reach its purest form thanks to the inexactitude of limited human understanding. For even when we understand how something comes to be, we still ponder on the why it is so. Even those fortunate souls who have never attempted to be a serious journalist still undoubtedly ponder the questions no one else dares ask, but most are probably smart enough to keep these dangerous queries to themselves. Those who do fail to follow the safe and narrow and pursue answers to these questions is in for a hell of a series of unfortunate roadblocks.
It’s quite clear to me that I’ve spun some intriguing threads, but I’m also well aware that tying them all together in order to get to know the artist better produces a woefully incomplete picture of the soul that produces them. I failed so miserably as a professional journalist thanks to not being able to stick to just the facts; even when I did, I’d go fatefully off track into topics that while may have been relevant to me at one time or another couldn’t ever capture the notice of the general public. Even when I succeed in writing at length on a particular topic I came to fancy, the draw to that topic fades quickly with the passage of time before it is left to the obscurity of my archives, left to be forgotten and insignificant in the grand scheme of my written endeavors.
As I age, I realize the necessity of turning to more lasting matters in my notes, even if they may not ever prove popular. What needs to be said is much longer lasting, and while it may be generally ignored by the masses, if even only a shred of what wisdom I have to impart affects the world consciousness in any way after my passing, then my legacy is in fact secured.
~ Amelia Desertsong