Most of yesterday, I was thinking about the paragraph below. Written on Saturday, but brewing for much longer.
The dilemma of being a listen-to-me writer or an invitational one. Someone who leaves space, observes quietly, or surrenders the stage to the reader.
Here’s the paragraph:
“Of course, it was more about me. I’m becoming increasingly aware of my tendency to anchor most of what I write here to something I’ve experienced myself. It grates on me. Hopefully not on you. I said I would open and close for a couple of days—Thursday and Friday—but a story surfaces and off we go. The Hook. Queueing Questions.”
There’s internal tension here, there has been for a while
I write about something I’ve experienced, something I’ve seen, something that’s stayed with me. It gives me a place to start. A way in. But somewhere along the way, the story can become less about the thing itself and more about my relationship with it. Me, my experience, my interpretation. Again.
I wonder if you feel that too?
There’s nothing inherently wrong with this. We write from where we stand, to me there’s no other way—I’m a conversational writer, or so I’ve been told.
In these posts to you, I sometimes try to offer answers or fixes to the challenges we all face. More often, I’m looking for different ways of thinking about things. Ideas that can co-exist, even when they seem irreconcilable. I’m not necessarily trying to resolve the tension between them. Perhaps the point is simply to put them out there. An offering.
The listen-to-me writer has something to say. They want you to hear it, perhaps agree with it, maybe even change your mind. The invitational writer is doing something different. They offer an observation, a question, a story. Then they leave a little room.
Can I be somewhere in-between, or leaning toward the invitational writer. There has to be room to disagree, to recognise something of your own.
It sounds simple enough. It’s harder to do than it sounds.
Writing every day here is firstly a commitment to just that—and secondly, it forces me out there, out of a comfortable place I had created. A bad place.
When I write I strive to be understood. I do want the reader to get it. I also want the reader to have to work a little—the point isn’t to lead them there, more to give the reader a place to begin.
And a note to oneself: I’m not suggesting I stop writing about my own experiences. They’re the raw material, and often the most interesting part. The challenge is knowing when the experience serves the story, and when the story is simply serving me.
I’ll keep thinking about it, keep trying to leave a little more space. One post at a time.
Nick
