Voices

The pitfalls of expression

By the

February 19, 2004


Somewhere in my bedroom there’s a wooden box filled with empty journals. Some are small and leather-bound, some are handcrafted with homemade paper and colorful string. Others are standard yellow legal pads with “Journal” printed in pen upon the first page.

The title pages are methodically composed, with my name, the starting date and usually something like, “PRIVATE: For the eyes of Robert Anderson only!” written neatly on the inside cover. The quality of the handwriting improves with time, as well as the relative importance of what I wrote about.

One of the early entries includes a list of my top five fifth-grade crushes and elaborates upon the details of each. A later one fatalistically predicts that, with my first year of high school looming around the corner, my summer between eighth and ninth grades will be the last of the “carefree days.”

In one of the more recent entries, the entire first page guarantees that I will fill the rest of the journal with important, personally groundbreaking stuff. “So many things have happened recently,” I wrote, “that I won’t be able to capture it perfectly in writing. It’s been a time of ups and downs, a time in which I’ve come of age.” The page ends with “So now let the story begin … ” But there the story ends abruptly.

I recently reread this introduction and, having prepared myself for a journey into my 15 year-old mind, anxiously flipped the page. But instead of finding old memories crammed between the covers, I found only blank page after blank page. Each journal I have begins and ends in the same way, a carefully crafted introduction followed by a book of empty pages.

Every time I sat down to start a journal, I thought something important was happening in my life: a transition from one school to the next, a notable accomplishment, a death. I knew that whatever I had to say then would be useful to me in the future. But even if the stories I was preparing to write would be for my eyes only, the weight of writing them-the stories, ideas or even just the words-rested too heavily upon my pen. Something about it was too final, too decisive. What goes in and what stays out? How important are the details? Is the truth crucial, or can I exaggerate for dramatic affect? Writing meant decision-making, choosing a story and sticking with it. Sometimes, if not most of the time, it was a burden I could too easily ignore.

My fear of writing wasn’t mine alone. Fear is the reason most people stop writing, why so many would-be writers turn to sociology or medicine. Thoughts of who will be reading and what they will think become more important than the writing itself. An unoriginal topic unmasks your lack of creativity. A too sentimental paragraph convinces you to call it quits. An inane simile becomes proof of your own stupidity. (Never mind that these can be edited out.)

My wordless writing continued when I got to college, but instead of journals I kept a folder of Word documents on my laptop. Some were blank, some had “just write” copied and pasted hundreds of times and others asked rhetorical questions like “Why aren’t you writing instead of thinking about why you don’t write?” I left my laptop on while I slept in case an idea struck me in the middle of the night. I woke up and tried again. I went for jogs. I went to dinner. Still, nothing.

One day I wrote a personal essay and e-mailed it to the editor of this section.He wrote me back and said he’d print it.An hour later, I frantically wrote him back: “Wait, please don’t print it. I really don’t like it.” He didn’t get my second e-mail and printed it anyway.Looking over the article now, I stand by my original judgment: It’s not that good of a piece. But I wrote it, he ran it, and I’ve been writing ever since. I’ve already written a poorly written article, so I might as well keep on writing. There’s nothing to lose.

Rob Anderson is a junior in the College and an associate editor of The Georgetown Voice. Contrary to what this piece may indicate, he is not a thirteen-year-old girl.



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