(dis)Honesty

By Parson Thru

Wed, 24 Jun 2015
  • 2061 reads
9 comments
 

Do you know what's wrong with my writing?

It's dishonest.

That's my big problem: dishonest writing.

A dishonest life.

I try to fit in.

Try not to cause any harm.

I'm a nice person. People like me because I'm nice.

But it means I'm dishonest. I hardly ever tell people what I really think of them.

I'm rarely honest to myself. Who is?

Aren't we all just trying to get by?

What the hell is honest writing anyway?

Writing is fraud.

Here I am writing down my thoughts - except, of course, I'm not. I'm cueing up words for the pen.

It's different.

My thoughts are too rapid, too complex and fleeting to wait for my hand to catch up - chasing ideas across the page, arriving once they've gone.

Dishonest writing is the only kind.

There. Now I've lost the point and become hostage to the need to finish the piece and go to sleep.

Once I edit it, the work becomes an outright lie.

Or, at best, a contrivance.

And now I've been and edited it.

Certificate U
Other
Passed on
Rant

Comments

Submitted by EB on

Interesting stream of thoughts. I get that feeling too. The harder we try to get it right, the further away from the actual reality it all becomes. But then we'll keep writing it anyway. Just keep going mate, or what's left? An honest lack of achievement. 

Submitted by Parson Thru on

Thanks EB. I used to do readings, but I felt like a fake and couldn't "perform" the piece with any sense of belief. Maybe it's just lack of a "voice". Whatever that really means. "Authentic". Absence of compromise. In my work, compromise is a positive to a point - taking a pure theoretical idea and making it live in the real world. But in writing? We might say we've been compromised or compromised ourselves. Interesting dual meaning. Writing as truth, therapy, engagement, sharing, identification, or entertainment? I've just been trying to articulate a sense of something lately, but find that I can't. Writing as a skill. Or lack of.

Parson Thru

Submitted by Philip Sidney on

Interesting ideas. I think honesty is just perspective, that's my excuse anyway.  I always get something out of your writing, so I don't think it matters either way. 

Submitted by Parson Thru on

Hi Philip. Thank you. Maybe that comment is all that's needed. One person gets something, so keep on sharing. It's worth it for that alone. And to find common ground with another soul in the vastness of this existence. Sometimes that vastness makes me feel very small. Even smaller than I am. X

Parson Thru

Submitted by Bee on

Is fiction a lie, then? Is writing for the sake of creating art just false? If I wrote, got up, went to the loo, got washed and dressed and brushed my teeth after breakfast, it would be true but uninteresting to read, so I might add that I did all this dressed as a pumpkin, not true, or is it? Even I'm wondering now. Nothing wrong with your writing, Kev. Keep scribbling, it's always interesting and I, amongst others,  enjoy reading it. 

X

Bee

Submitted by Parson Thru on

Honest fiction. True lies. What do I know? What do I know? I do write some rubbish. What the hell is honest writing? I don't know. I just have real trouble articulating myself. But I can't stop trying. Sounds like the realist school. Sounds like the Beats, with whom I may have spent too much time. Thank you Bee. X

Parson Thru

Submitted by love_writing on

It's refreshing to read someone being 'honest' about their writing- I can relate to what you are saying. Yet I think the point you made - that if you find common ground with one soul; a connection, then it's worth it, a million times over! Keep writing! 

love_writing

Submitted by Parson Thru on

Thank you love_writing. The more common ground there is, the happier the world might be.

Parson Thru

Submitted by Shannan on

Amen!

Heh heh, I also go through this... who will I offend? Can I write that? Is it truth? Has the edit kept it real? ... It can't help but be dishonest though, because we don't have enough words in the dictionary to describe truth and essence ... words - the Absurdists have them in their theory as being completely unhelpful forms of communication that aren't able to express a Soul's inner truth.... add that to the reader's own context and how they read it relevant to their experience and it becomes a completely different 'story' altogether - bam - writer's truth and meaning out the window for the reader's (Reader Response Theory) ... ugh... dishonesty - i.e. not truth.... may be all we are capable of .... or this is just me ranting back ;-) keep well $