Get Over It Already: On Vonnegut's Razor and Going Public

Okay this is how ridiculous weird I am about my writing. A week or so ago, I got up the gumption to start me, once again, a journal. But when it comes to anything creative—and I do consider a journal something creative, for better or worse—I’ve been, for the whole of my life, dysfunctionally private about it. The very thought of someone discovering what was going on inside of me, creatively speaking, was terrifying.

And I use the word “dysfunctionally” not just in a cutesy psychobabble way (that is, to just mean "neurotic"), but also and mostly in a very real way: This privacy thing of mine has been keeping me from functioning creatively.

Here’s an example. A couple of weeks ago, I realized that this fear of “being read” was preposterous in this day and age. After all, it’s not like I’d be writing my deepest-darkest into a book that could be found and rifled through by family, friends, lovers, firemen, or archaeologists of the future. I write like most people these days do: using a computer and Microsoft Word, which offers security features that are pretty darn good.

And so I had the realization that I should get over it already, and I started a "journal" file that very day. I wrote some stuff that excited me and got me motivated for more. When I was done, I locked it up with a very private password so that no one, no how, would ever be able to see how silly or trite or wannabe or smart or insightful I am or am not. And then I kinda just forgot about the whole thing, as is my regrettable wont.

Okay. So privacy weirdness is not my only problem. Clearly, stick-to-itiveness is one too.

Oh and I’ve got another issue with writing, and this one really factors in for journal-writing in particular: I can’t write if I feel like I’m just pushing words/thoughts/feelings into a black hole.

If you haven’t noticed yet, I’m pretty philosophical by nature—seeking meaning in way too many places—and even the fleetingest notion of What’s the point of this again? is a fail-safe derailer of any endeavor of mine. So journal-writing obviously comes into immediate conflict with that.

On the other hand, it could be argued that writing for nobody is a damn sight easier than writing for everybody at least. After all, communication is a doozy of a thing. To make sure other people “out there” understand exactly where you’re coming from (i.e., your own personal “in there”), you’ve got to understand where they’re coming from (i.e., their own personal “in theres”). And even within the English-speaking world, there are way too many in-theres out there to be able to appeal to any sizable audience in any thorough way. (Cue vague angst over the futility of human beings even trying to ever understand one another.)

Kurt Vonnegut (who, as we all know, is in heaven now, wink-wink, nod-nod) resolved this conundrum soundly, saying writers should pick one person, and then write to that one person. This idea is a huge relief for me, as well as for everyone under the age of 40, if I may be so bold: We have been leading lives overwhelmed by the anxiety of limitless choice.

Vonnegut’s solution to this audience problem really narrows down the playing field, and writing is a playing field that practically begs for a good narrowing.

Compared to many other creative endeavors, the constraints of creative writing are pretty flimsy. Take, for example, most kinds of musical composition. When you lay down a few bars of melody, what can feasibly follow is automatically delimited to certain deviations of those bars, certain musical keys, certain time signatures, certain styles, etc. But when you lay down the first few sentences of a story, what follows is pretty much a wildcard. There aren't really limits to what can happen, or what can be said. So how can a writer know he or she is making a “right” or even a “good” or choice, ever?

Thankfully, Vonnegut’s razor cuts through all that. Pick your Aunt Ethel as your one-person audience, and, well, you know there’s going to be a certain way that Aunt Ethel will most appreciate the story.

Thanks Kurt Vonnegut, for that and for all the rest.

So then anyway, today I was bitten again by the inspiration bug, once again, and I went to retrieve that new stealth journal of mine . . . only to discover I’d completely forgotten whatever password I’d devised to keep my own private little world totally private.

Lame. But lamer: I did a search for “journal” on my hard drive and found numerous such files I’ve started over the years.

Futile though it may be, I’m going to start again. And this time, I'm going to force myself out of my little self-coddling private password-protected hole and eschew the writer's black hole by writing into the big blog hole (although I am secretly writing to my own personal audience of one, just soes ya knows).

Maybe this time, with these fresh tools, I can turn this Sisyphean task into a Pyrrhic victory.