2021: Inferiority to the Minds of Great Writers
When I read, I want to cry. Not a gentle weep, but a fierce uncontrollable ugly sob. I want to punch my fist through the ground again and again to dig deep into a place where no one will ever judge me. I want to scream until the walls that confine me start to shatter. Even now as I aggressively slap the letters on my keyboard, anger is boiling inside my stomach and my forehead is creasing so hard it may fold in half. But why do I feel like this? Why is it that everytime I stare down at a page with such intent concentration, I am thinking “I’ll never be as good a writer as they are”? Writers are supposed to motivate me to be better and make me feel that I am included in something bigger than myself. Yet, while they attempt to inspire me, they make me feel inferior to them and their natural talents.
My dream as a child was to be an amazing creative author like J.K Rowling or Patrick Ness. I desired to be included in the writers circle of knowledge and gain inspiration from others to help me further my compositions. I read library after library, trying to come up with ideas that were original. But when it came to sitting down at a desk and putting my ideas on paper, there was nothing that escaped my mind that even had the slightest remnants of originality. Luka Lesson’s poem “May Your Pen Grace The Page” gave me the courage to scavenge for paper and write every word that flowed from the deep cracks in my brain, through my blood and out of my fingertips. I eternally craved to be just half as good as he was. But, being original? I came to the conclusion that this was no easy feat. In a world where every inch is filled with inventions, where does my inch fit? Books have been around since before the 5th century, and yet he believes that there are original ideas bouncing around our brains just waiting to be released. It’s as if his intimidation is meant to spark my creativity, and that if it’s not to his standards of originality, then I am not worthy of becoming an appraised author as he is. “No space for daydreaming, no place for that feeling, no place for pacing the building or facing the ceiling”. But if I am suffering from writer’s block, a lack of imagination, or have even just drained my energy while trying to discover an amazing idea, I would quite enjoy staring at the ceiling and daydreaming about a fantastical world where originality is not extinct.
Throughout my childhood, I have buried my petite little nose in the creases of novels and picture books. Whenever my mother was reading an Agatha Christie murder mystery on her bed, I would lay beside her with my Enid Blyton fantasy novels as she laughed at how grown up I was appearing to be. By reading, I have been learning, and through learning, I have been composing. But the cheerful happy-go-lucky fables I composed at the age of seven were so far behind the issues I discuss in my stories now, that my present compositions were just a spot in the far distance. My english teacher constantly says that “your writing should reflect real world problems” and “your writing should criticise our society and the human race”. But what my teacher fails to realise is that by attempting to write about real and raw insecurities in the world, I am stealing the ideas from authors before me and twisting them to create my own piece. I know that I am entitled to be inspired by others, but I personally do not feel comfortable writing based on the concept of an “other”. If I were to plonk my worn feet in their shiny undusted shoes and see that aspiring authors were taking the pure essence from my own writing and turning it into a story of their own with their name on the cover, I would most definitely not appreciate it. Why? Because I want to write based on my own experiences and ideas, and mine alone. But yet, there is not a millenia amount of readers out there that are excited to hear the experiences of a 17 year old who has not been released into the vast world. So therefore, I must write based on the “other”?
The fuel for an author's writing is an issue that will have a detrimental effect on the human race. No appraised author has ever sat down at their desk and written a novel that does not have themes and hidden messages about current society weaving in and out of their words, hiding in plain sight. Writers are the only people who have the courage to not deny the problems present in the world and refuse to let us crumble as a society under these issues. However, I have been told time and time again that writing about real issues is not enough and I must include language devices and techniques that further emphasise the point I am trying to get across. But yet, if I am constantly adding in language techniques that mean nothing to me and I do not understand, is it really making my writing better? It's like using a thesaurus to extend my vocabulary, but the words mean nothing. They are not original. If I was to only use this thesaurus, my words would be meaningless. So why embed language techniques just for the sake of it? Because it gives you more marks. More points. More appraisal. Sure, using a select few language techniques may make my writing more inspiring, but in the end, what the audience will really take from my composition will not be how I “effectively used symbolism” or “enhanced meaning using pathetic fallacy”. This is not what they will remember. But what they will remember is how I took one significant problem in society and turned it into a never seen before fantastical universe or a shuddering dystopian world where no human wishes to live in. Me? I enjoy the world that I live in. I am a white Caucasian Australian woman, who has not yet experienced the indignity of poverty, the exploitation of labour, nor unjust racism. But not sharing these horrific experiences does not mean I don’t love to write. It just means that the writing of others does not influence me.
