Messages in a Bottle

In a recent email Ingeborg referred to blogs as “messages in a bottle” and I thought that was a wonderful analogy. There are a lot of reasons to write - getting paid being the most understandable one. But if the only writing that got done and put out into the world was writing that was paid for this would be a very bleak world. If the only art made was made to appeal to a market we would have a lot more paintings of quaint romantic cottages with glowing windows and rainbows in the sky than many of us could bear to look at.

An old adage says that the power of the press belongs to those who own one. The internet has provided a very large segment of the population with a press of their own and the power to publish to the world. It is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, anyone who wants to write anything can put it out there. On the other hand, anyone who wants to write anything can put it out there.

Whenever I have taken writer’s workshops or attended writer’s conferences there is a lot of emphasis on “free writing”. Natalie Goldberg, teaching a class at Interface some years back, lead timed free writing exercises in which the only requirement was to “keep your hand moving”. Later when I was teaching writing I used the same technique. It is a very freeing practice and people are always astonished at what they write, what is inside of them and what they are capable of.

After attending a few Artist’s Way workshops with Julia Cameron at Interface, I wrote “morning pages” for years. I filled notebook after notebook with the most astonishing amount of “stuff” - some good, a lot of it perfectly awful. Finally, after several years of this, I gathered up the huge stack of notebooks, wrapped them in garbage bags and duct tape,and flung them into a dumpster (a common technique for disposing of unwanted bodies). I have no idea if anyone ever dug them out and unwrapped them but, if they did, I feel sorry for them. That stuff should have been classified as toxic waste.

But here’s the thing - writer’s write. It’s what writers do. They do their work, hopefully, but they also write emails and essays and heaven only knows what. I spent quite a few years doing a lot of writing on message boards. Some of that was a great opportunity to interact with others, some of it was an exercise in futility. A lot was an exercise in masochism. At this point I feel about that kind of writing like I did about the morning pages - wrap it up in plastic, seal it with duct tape, and get it out of my life!

So now I blog. It is less self-absorbed than the morning pages and less masochistic than the message boards. Each morning I get up, attend to my household necessities, make a pot of tea, and sit down to blog before beginning my day’s work. It is a centering discipline that requires a certain amount of craft, because it is going to be out there in the world where everyone can see. And, like any message in a bottle, it seeks a reader. Luckily, I get enough encouraging feedback to want to keep going.

It took a lot of years for me to find my voice, as they say. There is a responsibility that goes with that. Once you start speaking out and garner support from those who have yet to find voices of their own, you are obligated to stay at the task. When the slings and arrows of the soul killers (to use another of Ms Cameron’s phrases) start to fly, you just duck and keep going. That’s the price having a voice extracts. You write those messages, tuck them into their bottles, and cast them out onto the cyber-seas. Then you trust that you have done your job and get about the rest of your day.

Thanks for reading.