A Starting Place: The Art of Rambling
“For me writing has always been a form of private rambling. Only by writing obsessively on some image or idea or memory that’s gotten hold of me, then reading and re-reading what I have just written, do I begin to discover what my story is really about. Of course, just because I know doesn’t mean I always understand–or at least not at first. Even if I am writing about myself, the real story is not about me, but some aspect of human existence that puzzles me. But my initial rambling attempt tells me what direction I need to go.”
The hardest part about starting a blog is starting the blog. I feel I ought to declare a purpose, and set parameters–otherwise I risk lapsing into mere public rambling. But I have a problem: I’ve never written a blog before. When I am in a new place, I often wander about a bit, to get my bearings. As a stranger in the strange land of blogging, I feel uneasy staking out a territory in a place where I’ve just arrived. It feels impractical at best, imperial at worst.
And besides, for me writing has always been a form of private rambling. Only by writing obsessively on some image or idea or memory that’s gotten hold of me, then reading and re-reading what I have just written, do I begin to discover what my story is really about. Of course, just because I know doesn’t mean I always understand–or at least not at first. Even if I am writing about myself, the real story is not about me, but some aspect of human existence that puzzles me. But my initial rambling attempt tells me what direction I need to go.
And so I begin a second draft and continue to explore my subject. I’ve switched from meandering to actively seeking. It’s as if, while wandering around in the snow, looking here and there, I’ve noticed the tracks of some animal I’ve never seen before. I begin to follow them as best I can. Though I haven’t seen the animal yet, I know some things about it just from the act of following the tracks: whether it is a predator or prey; whether it has wings as well as feet; whether it’s moving slowly or quickly; whether it travels in a group or is solitary.
This is how I write, yet even as I am intent on the trail of my thought, some element of rambling remains as I progress. My draft expands and contracts as I add new insights or images that are relevant, and delete those that are not. Sometimes I go down a false trail and must backtrack. Sometimes I must stop and do some fact checking or some research, just as I sometimes in the wilderness stop to check my guidebook, or a map. But always I am compelled to keep writing in my own meandering way until I learn something that surprises me.
It’s the surprise I’m pursuing. Yet the surprise, almost always, brings with it a sense of wonderful recognition, and it’s hard to say which one I love the most.
And now, as I write this entry, the first surprise arrives: I sat down to make myself proclaim what my blog would be about, but instead I wrote in my usual meandering way. I see myself in pursuit of the surprise.
Maybe it’s isn’t necessary, after all, to start with a plan to contain myself and my work, or worry too much what it will be about. For now, I’ll leave room for the blog to shape itself. I look forward to the surprise.