On Not Exorcising the Demons

She was a great writer who, in an unintended act of goodwill towards future generations, mainly wrote in pen. This is important because pens have no erasers, nor do they have a ‘delete key.’ There is steadiness in her hand, even in the mistakes, which are clearly legible despite the hatch marks. Crossed out, skipped over, left dangling unfinished even these pieces of thought brought forth from her imagination hold the key–a key–to how she worked and who she was.

The answers are not always in the finished work; though it may look authoritative. The struggle is most tangible in the draft. Once the contradictions are ironed out and the confusions corrected, the energy is changed. There is elation (and danger) in that release of tension that accompanies the act of completion. From that point on, the words are changed from what they were when they were still malleable clay in the hands of the creator. In the best scenario, the words maintain the essence of the struggle, which imbues them with a depth they can’t muster on their own. More often, the creative demons are cleaned out, shown the door, exorcised, leaving behind shells of words without a clue who made them, how they ended up here, and what for.

Post script: Unknown to me, in yesterday’s NY Times there was an exhibition review for a collection of handwritten letters, manuscripts, stories, and lectures from the likes of Emily Dickinson, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Mark Twain, George Washington, Einstein, Eisenhower and others, at Sotheby’s. What a perfect way to feel the humanity in history. Go check it out if you’re in NYC.