Who Needs Your Writing? (Amber Intro) (07/25/2020)

Who Needs Your Writing? | The Weekly Atticus

July 25, 2020

A recap of the week's writing at Atticus Review. Introduction by Amber Shockley.

I ruminate a lot on the existential purpose of my writing. When I was a little girl – an only child, awkward and lonely, tucked in a small space out in the yard or in my room – the concern of purpose didn’t cross my mind. I simply followed an impulse to mimic the thousands of stories I’d consumed, because I could, and knowing I could brought some measure of thrill and pride. 

Now, though, my impulses are otherwise. Day after day, I choose household chores over writing. Part of that is the simple, human pleasure of being busy, active, and useful — fulfilling my own immediate needs and the needs of those I love.

Who, really, needs my writing? 

And even if there were a need, there’d certainly be no daily, repeating immediacy to it. Not like there is with dinner. 

I am on the autism spectrum. Well, my brain is. Autistic brains tend toward rumination and perfectionism. I am constantly thinking, rethinking, overthinking about the best, most right, reasonable thing to do at any moment, given the circumstances. This affects everything from whether I go grocery shopping on Wednesdays or Thursdays, to whether or not I write.

Given the profundity of excellent literature already available, and talented writers already producing more, does it make the best, most right, reasonable sense for me to use my time and energy to write at this moment, when the dishes are dirty? Convincing myself so feels like narcissism, or else giving in to superfluity.

When people tell me “just write for yourself,” I think they’re thinking of the little girl I was, excitedly discovering the pleasure of craft through easy, fantastical storytelling. Or perhaps they’re thinking of the young woman I was, feverishly writing in journals, trying to get a grip on an overwhelming, neurotypical world. Besides the fact that the word “just” is a huge tip-off that I’m about to receive advice from someone who has no idea what it’s like to be autistic, “just write for yourself” ignores the fact that I am now a grown woman with more complicated ideas about writing, and being a writer. I want my writing to be unique. I want my writing to matter to others. These desires are hefty, perhaps impossible, burdens that I feel every time I even think of writing.

These desires are also complicated by another aspect of autism — difficulty communicating. In the autism community, mimicking neurotypical speech and behaviors in order to be accepted in neurotypical society is called masking. We hide so we can be seen. Communicating thoughts generated by my autistic brain feels like trying to funnel a sea into a tributary. In other words, trying to say or write what I’m thinking often feels like steering water that’s too much, too salty, and flowing in the wrong direction. As a child, I mimicked the stories I read. As an adult, I read other poets and try to filter my words through the sieves I’ve seen used successfully. We might call this craft.

Most humans mimic to some degree. Most writers craft under the influence of others. When does mimicking become a mask? When does crafting become a loss of unique voice? Is there such a thing as a true, unmasked self, or a true, unique voice? In any case, mimicking/masking/crafting can be excruciating, exhausting work, but attempting to drop the mask, to live and/or craft uniquely, can be excruciating, uncomfortable work as well, if not impossible. I am constantly fighting the battle to be both authentic and successful, two states which, as a woman and a writer with autism, often seem at odds.

I’m sure that most writers struggle with the questions of craft, authenticity and purpose that I’ve posed, to some degree.  For me, they are obsessions that keep me away from the page. For all of us, I suspect that the answer requires a rare, long-cultivated blend of bravery and clarity. 

Thanks for reading. We're glad you're here.

Amber Shockley

Assistant Poetry Editor

THIS WEEK AT ATTICUS REVIEW

FICTIONWHEN YOU REALLY LOSE SOMEONEby Connie Guo"The backs of my eyes burned, and heat bloomed in my cheeks as I scoured my apartment looking for her. I inspected the dusty nooks and shelves of my pantry closet and kitchen cupboards, overturning cans of beans, half-eaten boxes of cereal, and bags of white rice."READ ON

POETRYTHEY'VE BLOCKED THE YELLOW BRICK ROADby Justine Aubrie"If the munchkins had detained Dorothya scarecrow would still be hanging in the fieldwhile a tinman rusted in the woods..."READ ON

CREATIVE NONFICTIONSEXTby Brian CliftonPart of our Superunknown: Stories About Songs series"I wish I could kiss my partner. I wish I could make her days less stressful. I wish I didn’t have to work so much to be able to pay my half of the bills."READ ON

MIXED MEDIA:NARROW THE VESSELSby Marilyn McCabe"Anselm Kiefer entitled this sculpture 'Étroits les vaisseaux,' which is a line from a long poem by Saint-John Perce, 'Amers.' The section specific to this line considers the march of history, and, to my reading, of war..."READ ON

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