Writing vs. Speaking

I've never considered myself a particularly good or engaging writer. I'm okay with academic research papers, but writing in my own voice has always been difficult for me. It's always seemed to strange to me how someone can take the same statement and sound completely different saying it vs. writing it. I personally think that I am a better talker than a writer, which isn't to say that I am talkative person because I'm not, but rather that I am better able to translate my thoughts through speaking than through writing. I'm really not sure why that is, since I obviously have more time to carefully plan out my words when writing, but I think it might be because I know that the person or people I'm talking to are listening, which makes me more aware of how my words sound. But that actually doesn't make much sense because putting my thoughts out there on the internet should be much more daunting since it will probably live on in some form or another for eternity, whether I like it or not. Or maybe its because I tend to over-think things when I write - much like I am right now.

Whatever the reason, I've always been aware of this fact and pretty much despised it. I idolize so many great writers and I think that I have some negligibly interesting thoughts that might be worth sharing, which makes me hate the fact that I can't write for shit. I lack a distinct voice, and as a result, any mildly share-worthy ideas I have manage to transform into generic asinine comments. You would have to pay me to read my own writing. But I suppose, to quote Mad Men, that is what happens when you have the artistic temperament but not the artistic talent.

My First Post - the title of this blog

A few weeks ago I was having a conversation with a friend, and she told me that I should really start writing. It’s not that I haven’t thought about it before; in fact, I have indeed attempted to write on many occasions. Whatever that means. And I’ve always felt that I appreciate a good turn of a phrase more than others. I guess the thing that has always stopped me from writing is that fact that I have in my head this picture of what writing is supposed to sound like. Every time I try to write something, I end up not writing in my own voice. What comes out instead is usually a pretty sad imitation of what I think a “good writer” might say, and it always ends up sounding really silly and pathetic and fake. So now I am going to attempt to write in my own voice as I would say the words out loud about whatever is on my mind, which is usually a lot. Beware, this blog is more than likely to be scatterbrained and unfocused, but I'm just going to pretend that it's stream of consciousness so people will think that it's more sophisticated and purposeful. 

So about the title of this blog. To answer your question, yes, I did steal the it from a F. Scott Fitzgerald novel. In This Side of Paradise, Amory Blaine says, "'I was born a cynic. I'm a cynical idealist.' He paused and wondered if it meant anything." How badass is that sentence? I realize that its actually three sentences, but you know what I mean and if you are anything like me, you just love everything about them. I don't really think I need to go into an extensive explanation of what that means - interpret it however you like - but I've always considered my self (the space in between those words is purposeful) to be strangely contradictory and I like how Fitzgerald was able to articulate my feelings so perfectly.

In any case, I recently read this quote by John Steinbeck (one of my all-time literary idols) about writing until you've written everything you want to say without stopping and pausing and editing. Just getting it all out there. I think I'm going to give this a go. It will probably be a completely disastrous experiment and I doubt that any decent writing , but I think it will be a good way for me to de-clutter all of my thoughts. Stayed tuned for that.