Writing for the sake of writing?

If you are/were a student in any sense of the word, there is no doubt you will remember this scene: the clock has reached the single digits of the early morning hours, a mug filled with coffee (or poison of choice) on the desk—no doubt the fourth installment of this liquid—eyes hesitant to blink for fear of closing permanently, and a deadline in seven hours or less. Why do we always let ourselves reach this point? There’s the usual procrastination ritual (“let’s see how long we can put off this writing assignment before it starts to scare me!”), the feeling of being overwhelmed with all sorts of other work, and of course, the lack of inspiration. More often than not, I find myself looking at the white screen of an empty Word document wondering where on earth to begin.

We are given deadlines from the earliest years of our life. In elementary school, we found it safe to assume that most of our exams or quizzes would be on Fridays, a deadline set for learning or memorizing information by the end of the week. As we progressed through our schooling, pop quizzes were instated to keep us on our toes, a way for teachers to scare us into remembering information so we could regurgitate it at any point. During high school, classes were dedicated to seeing how quickly students could write down their thoughts or create an informed essay about a topic given at the start of the class period.

I remember people complaining about this in my high school. When my eighth grade literature teacher asked us to come up with a poem in twenty minutes, we all gaped at her. “What?? Are you kidding?” seemed to be the unanimous reply. Even those of us who enjoyed writing couldn’t understand the point of having a time crunch like this. Our beef focused on the lack of time to create something good. Now creativity had a time stamp; you could only be as good as you could possibly be within a set amount of minutes. Yet this is what we became used to. With the addition of the writing option for the SAT, students were again faced with a timed opportunity to express their knowledge and originality—in five paragraph format, no less.

Writing as college English majors, we are still constrained to deadlines and word counts, but suddenly given creative licenses. Yes, we still need to write a certain amount of pages by this time next Wednesday, but as an English (or Creative Writing) major, for the most part you are given the opportunity to write about something that concerns you. Most papers, instead of having a step by step outline of what you must include in the body of your assignment, now just give a basic topic as your jumping off point, and the rest is up to you. And yet, with time constraints and word counts, are we really free to express what we need to express creatively?

Any writer will tell you that inspiration doesn’t just come at will; it’s not something you can channel and suddenly produce great writing. It usually starts with a small idea, and builds up (with any luck) to a greater argument. The trick is maintaining the growth without squelching the creativity, or losing sight of what you truly want to say. It’s harder to write your best if you’re given too many stipulations; the creative flow becomes marginalized and the true sense of the argument is lost due to the demand of requisites. We put off writing assignments with the excuse of not being properly inspired.

So how do we tackle this problem? Since there is no way to bottle inspiration for every individual, there is a deep need for personal exploration, a self-evaluation: What inspires you, and how can this be related to inspired writing? Personally, I’ve found the early morning hours helpful when it comes to honing in on the creative flow. A brisk walk outside and suddenly I have a better topic idea. Find what works for you and simply write. I will conclude once more with a challenge: regardless of the stipulations of your next assignment or writing project, just write. Write organically, without highlighting the words every couple of sentences to see if you’ve reached the word limit. If you’re stuck, try writing something for yourself first, to get the hypothetical juices flowing. Apply creativity to your everyday writing, and I’m sure you will be surprised with the result.

2084

Imagine with me, if you will, a classroom roughly eight decades from now: children sitting at their desks, their laptops in front of them, fingers typing quickly away at the keys taking notes. Instead of turning to a selected page in their textbooks, they point and click, summoning an online text. There are no writing implements around; the idea of writing thoughts down on paper is obsolete. Why write something when you could type about it instead? There is no need to teach penmanship in elementary school, only typing etiquette. Literacy implies knowledge of basic functions on a computer. Reading is done only online, and books as we know them today are obsolete.

Before tossing this idea aside, consider this immutable fact: our society is becoming more and more centralized on the digital world. The more actions that can be controlled by a single electronic device, the better. Already we can use the same hand-held gadget to check email, send messages, take pictures, get directions and access any internet site. Naturally, the literary world has begun to follow suit; allowing the world to view a wide variety of book excerpts and other texts on the internet. The book reviewer has been released from his former newspaper/magazine niche and set loose on the world wide web, with opportunities to express his feelings to the literary community online through blogging (such as this).

Another factor to consider is the far off cry of environmentalists, which in recent years has become louder and more poignant. Rather than ignoring those who promote recycling and “save the fill-in-the-blank” advocates, society as a whole is realizing the sense that these people have been trying to instill in us the whole time. People are beginning to utilize recycling centers more frequently, and are starting to cut back on excessive paper usage. Logically, cutting back on paper usage means more trees have the opportunity to grow; taking part in photosynthesis, providing the world with oxygen. There really does not seem to be a down side to this. Combining this idea with the aforementioned digital fixation however, and soon the world is asking itself why it needs to use paper in the first place.

There would be no need to write letters with electronic communication, and no need to handwrite an essay for a class when it can be typed and submitted by email. Furthermore, when you can access books online and read from your computer screen, why would you need a physical book in your hands?

The demise of the book has already begun, and with it, arguably, the downfall of literacy. Our current generation is being shortchanged by a lack of literary focus and of predecessors who would rather read the quick notes on a book than actually sit down and read it. All throughout high school, I can remember my fellow classmates looking for any possible way to get out of reading for literature class. The text was always too long or too boring to keep their interest, so they would research the book online to absorb a basic plot summary for an exam.

These students are incredibly computer literate. These same classmates that could not suffer through The Great Gatsby could find at least seven online sites that gave you plot summaries, and even a YouTube video reenacting a scene from the book. Furthermore, they cannot put their thoughts on paper, but can journal about their classes on MySpace, using shorthanded and purposely butchered spellings of words that would have made F. Scott Fitzgerald cringe. I fear that since my high school years, these practices have only become worse.

I do not dislike the electronic literary world by any means; I simply mean to call attention to the idea of books becoming extinct. My personal nightmare begins in a setting much like the opening scenario, where people no longer read books. Period. It is hard- and dare I say it painful- to imagine a world where children must grow up with no concept of what it is to open a book for the first time. A generation that will never experience the aroma of a new book, bending back the spine to see the text in a clearer light.

By all means, keep pushing the envelope in broadening the literary world to reach as many people as possible. I only ask that printing continue. There is something about taking the time to read a brand new book that is so liberating, a feeling that too few people experience. Furthermore, the act of writing a story itself, the way the words look on paper, is another element that could never be replaced. Allowing the flow of ideas to come directly from your head to your pen that feels so organic rather than digitized. This is a feeling that should never be compromised, let alone become obsolete.

Those of you reading this blog—return to the book. Go back to the stories you once loved to read, sit in a comfy chair away from your computer and read them once more. Rather than checking the news headlines online, pick up that newspaper. Better yet, find a brand new text to absorb yourself in. In doing so, I hope  you remember what it was once like to read a book as a child, traveling to the world within the novel, allowing the imagination to run free without the aid of a computer screen. Long live the book, and let the print go on.