Writing journal Aug 28 2015

Writing journal. Entry of August 28, 2015.

My struggles with writing don’t start like this, but this journal about my struggles with writing does.

I was reading some of John Scalzi’s books. I no longer remember how I came across this writer but given that I am an avid SciFi reader since my early teens, there are probably many explanations of the fact. I was annoyed when I came across his name; it always happens that I become annoyed with myself when I come across a new SciFi writer – I feel I am not the avid SciFi reader I believe I am – which is clearly nonsense, as I cannot know all the new writers that pop up in the SciFi universe. But it is annoying, and perhaps a sign of my aging or of how much work I have, that this happens more and more often these days; I hardly know anyone younger than Gibson.

I think I first read Red Shirts and then Locked In; and then, Amazon, in its infinite, scary knowledge of my taste, recommended the Old Man’s War trilogy. As I browse to buy it, my annoyance increased and now with good reason: although I read a fair share of Robert Heinlein, I did not read Starship Troopers nor I had ever heard of The Forever War and its author, Joe Haldeman. So I bought this last book and the trilogy. As I read them, tragedy fell upon my extended family. I can’t tell whether this tragedy or these warlike books are to blame for my urges to write again. Likely, both are.

To John Scalzi, I would say, ‘thanks for introducing me to warlike SciFi,’ not that I ever want to write a story like that… and ‘my wife rocks too.’

So I decided it to write again. In my work, I often come across the question, ‘what makes a mathematician.’ I wonder now if writing makes me a writer; but the truth is, although I deeply cared for this question in the past, I don’t anymore. I just want (or need) to write and I enjoy it when I do it, or when I think about doing it. I got a few books about writing and I am devouring them, reading in a way I never read before; in the sense we eat and then we beget, as Emerson wrote, so comes my reading before my writing.

I got myself a corner of the house, with a desk; I can see the windows and plants and bookcases. In the corner I feel like in a trench; alone but attentive, listening. I got myself a notebook, to write down ideas, urges, words. It is my version of ‘a room of one’s own.’

When I was a teenager, I wanted to be a writer and I took what I thought was some proactive action in that direction. I started a career in literature and philosophy. It turned out to be a bad idea – or maybe I was not ready to make the leap that writing seems to require: the incommensurable leap between imagining writing and writing. I am ready now; I am writing.