My pal and fellow Tartan writer, Ian Giles, recently wrote an article about “why everyone should make bad drawings.” Despite my being artistically inept and generally fearful of people who can draw (Have you ever seen an artist draw? They are simultaneously locked in and nonchalant. It’s terrifying. They might as well roll their eyes back in their skull and start levitating.), I was inspired by Mr. Giles. While I don’t see myself becoming even an off-brand equivalent of Someone Who Draws, I think Ian’s argument also applies to an artform I’m more familiar with: writing.
I’m an English major, a staffwriter, and a co-lead copy editor at The Tartan; I write in my free time, and I have a job where I literally get paid to help people with their writing. These facts peacefully coexist with the reality that most of what I write is complete and utter garbage. That may come as a surprise to some of you, because I never have — and never will — show the garbage writing to the public. And that’s okay! There’s value in leaving that writing alone and letting it live its life as garbage.
We often think that our writing needs to be good for whatever imaginary audience we’re writing for. But there doesn’t have to be an audience! We can write just because we want to, even if we know no one will see it. Garbage writing can be valuable practice for non-garbage writing, if that’s your jam. It can also be something you find later and realize has potential, or something you find later and laugh about. No matter what, it’s writing. It’s something you’ve created. It’s thoughts that you’ve gotten out of your brain and onto paper. That’s pretty cool!
See the last sentence of the first paragraph in this article? I rewrote that sentence 11 times (I counted). I still don’t really like it. I’m going to reread this article and immediately have eight new ideas for restructuring or rewording that sentence, and I’ll get frustrated at myself for not originally seeing these blatantly obvious and superior options. However, while that sentence may not win me a Pulitzer, it sure does get the point across; and at the end of the day, that’s a gift in itself.
There’s something unbelievably freeing about writing, no matter the genre. Recently, I’ve become a big fan of writing opinion pieces. As someone who loves to talk but isn’t the most eloquent speaker, it’s really cathartic to be able to rant about a random, specific topic for pages on end and know that I (and several others) can go back and edit it to make it sound pretty. I used to be scared about writing for The Tartan because I wasn’t confident in my writing ability and was constantly worried about my pieces being “good enough.” Over this past semester, though, I’ve stopped worrying about things being “good” and started writing stuff to make myself giggle or feel better, or just to have something fun to do. Every single article I write starts as a rambly, nonsensical bullet-point list of random thoughts. And honestly, that’s my favorite part of the writing process: getting stuff on paper, even if it’s stuff I’ll delete 20 minutes later. The only reason it becomes an article is because I promised the lovely Tartan editors that it would. Otherwise, I’d be more than happy to just leave those disorganized thoughts as they are. There are people on The Tartan staff who are absolutely better at writing than I am, and there will be articles published in this issue that highlight that reality. But that doesn’t diminish the fact that I’m having fun writing this article, as well as the fact that you’re currently reading it. I highly recommend this form of writing, even if you don’t think you’re a particularly good writer, or if you’re just going to write a few sentences in your journal, or if you’re not going to show it to anyone (although The Tartan is always looking for writers *wink wink*). Writing in this genre is like getting a popcorn kernel unstuck from my brain-teeth.
I think poetry has a bad reputation — undeservedly so — for being pretentious and inaccessible for both readers and writers. But you know what’s cool about poetry? You can write it about literally anything. It can be in any form you want. It could be one line, or it could be another “Iliad.” Did you see a cool tree? Write about what it looked like and why you thought it was cool. Got your heart broken? Write about why, where, when, and how you’re hurting. Write about your confusion and see if you can detangle it. Love your friends? Describe their smiles in as many words as you can. Poetry is chill like that. You never have to show it to anyone if you don’t want to, but it can help you process so many thoughts and feelings: good and bad and in-between. In my experience, there’s no better way to ground myself than pinpointing a random thing and writing a little something about it. The best part is that, if you keep your poems in your Notes app like I do, you can look back on it a year from now and remember how you felt in this moment; and you’ll be so grateful you took the time (even if it’s only a minute) to describe that cool tree.
Writing badly has gotten me through a lot. As someone with a messy brain, it’s nice to have a way to transcribe my stream of consciousness into something more coherent. It helps me connect with the world around me, and, if it ends up being something that goes through rounds of editing and gets published, it’s a wonderful way to share my thoughts with others. So, gorgeous Tartan reader, if you ever feel or think things, write those things down. Don’t make it pretty or even understandable to anyone besides yourself. Just write for the sake of getting to know yourself and the world around you.
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