I can’t remember if I wrote this before (I can’t find any mention of it). Writing is an interesting exercise and one which I enjoy more and more. There was a fear once that the art of writing would fall by the way with the advent of new technology. I suspect that for the time being writing will see something of a revival as blogs and chats take off.

 

At any rate it seems to me that writing can be both an exercise and an art (sometime both at once) in the same way painting can be both a functional exercise (like the painting of my walls) or an art (like the work of William Blake). Painting as well can be both functional and artistic (like the ceiling of the Cistine Chapel).

 

In my case writing is more often than not a functional exercise which strives to move into an art.

 

It occured to me the other day that the greatest enemy to writing as art (and perhaps all art) is fear. Nothing seems more limiting to me than fear. Fear prevents us from expressing. Fear instills in art restraint and paralysis – and there is nothing worse than an art you sense was meant to be much more than it is…an art whose greatness is buried beneath a vast and thick flesh until it becomes almost unrecognizable.

 

Don’t get me wrong – I believe fear can be a great creative force which can motivate the creation of amazing things (see Edvard Munch’s The Scream). The kind of fear I am talking about is a fear of the art itself – a fear of what you are creating (or a fear of the response to it).

 

Surely what you create then is more of a safe thing. A pleasent item to look at or read. A tame creation with no claws to grab and hang on with, like Hemingway writing Harlequins or Warhol designing Campbell’s soup labels.

 

…more on this later – I’m running out of steam…