“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
-Ernest Hemingway
This quote is one that until recently, I had absolutely no clue existed. I heard it from a friend of mine after he heard that I was going back to school and that I was going to have to take a couple of writing/composition classes. I started thinking about this quote for seemingly hours after our conversation. I wanted to dive deep into the words, forage around, and find the true meaning of the quote. At first I thought Ernest Hemingway was just saying that you sit at a typewriter and just let the words flow out as if it were blood. However, the more I thought about this quote, the more I thought I was wrong initially. You see, it was at about this time that I also saw a quote that when mixed in with other thoughts in the recesses of my brain, decided it was going to completely change my thoughts on Ernest Hemingway’s quote.
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”
-Maya Angelou
Maybe after reading this second quote, you started to go down the same neural pathways that I did or maybe it didn’t change your thoughts at all. But when I read these two quotes together, I find a whole new meaning in the former. I started to think, maybe Ernest Hemingway wasn’t just talking about sitting down and letting your thoughts pour out, maybe he was speaking to something much greater. Maybe he was saying all you do is sit at a typewriter and allow your soul to pour out. The words, ideas, stories, and thoughts that you keep deep inside in the darkest corners of your thoughts, just let them out. If you do this, instead of attempting to force the writing, everything will become much easier for you. I attribute much of my success in my writing class to this quote and how it has helped me mold the way that I write.
It was from quotes like these with the addition of my writing class that I have started to learn the true strength of writing. Something that is effectively written, whether it’s a song, essay, blog post or even a Facebook status can get meaning across better than almost any other form of communication. It allows you to sit down and filter out all your filler thoughts in order to get down to the sharp point that words can create. With this said, I want to leave you all with one last reminder of how strong words can be.
“Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly — they’ll go through anything. You read and you’re pierced.”
-Aldous Huxley
Higher Primate 