but i'm a drafter

"we write to taste life twice."
--anais nin

i was hanging out with my friend M yesterday and
like most grad school nerds we were talking about
academics...more specifically writing.

i have a very strange relationship with the process of writing
i love it
i hate it
i use it as an object to gauge my own self worth,
to determine the exact dimensions or specifications
of who i am as a writer
i realize that this is unwise
but i still do it nonetheless

in any event, back to my conversation with M
i was telling her about one of the comments
that i received (anonymously) from a reader
who, incidentally, passed me on the answer to the question...
anyway,
this reader basically scolded me for articulating my
ideas in "tortured" prose.
i must admit that this hurt my feelings
and i was pretty vocal about it

i'm not above criticism...and i,
more than anyone else,
realize that my writing can indeed be 'torturous' to read
because it is torturous to write
but i think that's the point

going over this comment and my adverse reaction to it with M
she looked at me and said:
"YOU'RE a drafter"
i thought about it and i sighed out an agreement
i am a drafter
writing is never, ever finished for me

my project and, consequently, my writing is and always will be
a draft
i write against language
i write against grammar
i write against the active
in an actively passive way...the paradox is torturous
but, for me, most necessary

while i disagree with the violent word of "torture" and
the various acts that it signifies i do realize that
my writing is a struggle
with knots
i untie them while at the same time making new ones
i look at the knots that i have made and i begin to untie
them and in this process creating newer ones
and so it goes

i am a drafter
an un-tier and maker of knots simply because
i hate the regulatory "nature" of language
with its power and its violent oppression
i will always write against it
because my life and who i am is reflected within the very
prose that issues forth from my clouded mind

i am a drafter therefore
my life and who i am is a draft and i
will continue to write
and rewrite my ideas and my life

at times, my stances will be cogent even if only in an instant...
at others
not so much (at least for the reader)
but ultimately i must be true (in a postmodern sense of 'true') to the conflict
that brews inside of me and work it out the best
way that i know how
which is writing
which is reading
which is interpreting and
ultimately unapologetic

it's funny, this same reviewer rattled off a litany
of scholars that i should read...(about 8)
6 of them i have read and
hindsight causes me to chuckle
because when i reflect on this list
i have very specific reasons for NOT using
these suggested writers
and i chuckle even more when i think
that if i ever attempted to copy or emulate the ways in which
they write or, more specifically, how they work out their ideas
within their writing i would never have
been accepted to grad school and certainly would never have
passed three comprehensive exam questions

from now on
i will be unapologetic with my writing
it has to be honest (if only temporarily)
and it has to be
re-written

i am a drafter
i would not want or have it any other way