Tonight was the book launch. The book was not my own, but my name is there, neatly typed, on pages 85 through 89. And my words are there too, written over a year ago, submitted, but really only to meet the requirements of an assignment for my fourth-year magazine writing instructor.
I think they're important words. They're the kind of words that might have made it all easier. They're the words I would give to my teenage self.
But who am I to try and sum up my entire high school experience in 1,500 words or less? Who am I to sandwich every major relationship of my formative years between semi-colons? Who I am to subject their secrets, my memories and my words to a third-party editing process?
Tonight, it became clear: I might be the kind of person who wants to hide behind their words.
I remember once you told me a story (I'm being vague on purpose here but you'll know which one) about you thinking you had something when something happened and it turned out to be nothing. I hope that's in there. I guess I'll find out when I get it.
ReplyDeleteAllow me to also say this; it's easy to hide behind words, but it's also easy to not use them to express what you're really wanting to say. Words allow you to organize fragments of thoughts and emotions into a neat narrative, but obviously life isn't like that. Live is rarely a neat and tidy narrative, so effectually, you may be downplaying real thoughts and emotions by cramming them into 1500 words and polishing them up for publishing. I had a girlfriend once who told me, "I'm not as good with words as you are." While she was trying to tell me something emotional between the two of us. It was useless, of course, because even though I can shape my words for any delicate situation, all it has turned me into is a fantastic liar. She had to be truthful, she didn't know how to manipulate words in order to manipulate an entire thought, emotion, feeling, situation, etc. In some ways, not being so polished is a blessing. This leads me to my final point about that last thought which is for someone who is incredibly open (blogs etc), I am/have always wondered what is going on in your head that you're just not saying. Chalk it up to my experiences with people in the past gone wrong, or what have you. I just always thought that any raw feeling about anything, even a sandwich say, could not be that succinctly put.
Congrats on getting published!
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