Back when I was taking classes for my bachelor's degree, one of my favorite courses came in the final semester of my senior year (when I was working 30 hours a week in a supervisory role while taking 18 credits and writing my senior thesis--on Orwellian antiheroes). It was called "Non-fiction Prose Writing," and it brought with it one of my most marked-up "textbooks" that I've ever used: Writing Down the Bones. To say that this course affected my writing would be a supreme use of understatement. While I had already started developing my "voice" in writing long before, it was this class, this instructor, and this book that truly honed my writing, establishing the general mannerisms that I still use today.
However, I also realize that I often do not follow one rule established by Natalie Goldberg in her book (and emphasized in that class): Go for the jugular. She attributes the idea to Hemingway's advice: Write hard and clear about what hurts. The idea is that real writing, true writing makes its way to the marrow of life; it does not shy away from the truth because it's afraid of society might say. Instead, it taps into the currents of the universe and produces something that might include pain within joy, forgiveness within rage, ugliness within beauty, and truth within lies.
Even with my "controversial" posts, I find myself lacking in this regard. Certainly, some of my caution is well-warranted--things which I might write could be damaging to others as well as myself. Still, I wonder if, by playing it safe, I have slipped short of the truth and thus lost that deeper connection that could have been made between myself and my reader ... between myself and the universe.
However, I also realize that I often do not follow one rule established by Natalie Goldberg in her book (and emphasized in that class): Go for the jugular. She attributes the idea to Hemingway's advice: Write hard and clear about what hurts. The idea is that real writing, true writing makes its way to the marrow of life; it does not shy away from the truth because it's afraid of society might say. Instead, it taps into the currents of the universe and produces something that might include pain within joy, forgiveness within rage, ugliness within beauty, and truth within lies.
Even with my "controversial" posts, I find myself lacking in this regard. Certainly, some of my caution is well-warranted--things which I might write could be damaging to others as well as myself. Still, I wonder if, by playing it safe, I have slipped short of the truth and thus lost that deeper connection that could have been made between myself and my reader ... between myself and the universe.
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