Writing is hard.
Even in the best circumstances, when you’re inspired, or writing something purely creative, imaginative, fluid or formless, it’s still tricky business. There’s the self-doubt, the “violence of articulation” (as Momma Anne says) when you take that first step into the void, discovering tone, word choice, grammar, punctuation - so many things can derail you from your simple task of finding the words to convey your thought, your point, your purpose.
This is what I’ve been discovering as Marsha and I have waded through the writing and rewriting process on several proposals over the last few weeks. Not just is writing hard – writing at least marginally well I mean – but writing about something you love that seems intangible, illusive: that’s really, really hard.
I was looking at our website tonight, double checking that I’d used the proper photo credits in a proposal that we’re about to submit and I was struck once again by this company, this place that I stumbled into a little over a year ago, running into an unknown shelter out of the snow and the wind and the darkness, only to find myself – simply – home.
But what I keep struggling with – what I think many of us are struggling with – is how to put that feeling, that subjective experience, that internal, instinctive knowledge of what New Leaf is – into words. We’re lucky when we can talk with each other about it in a way that really encapsulates what we’re trying to say. As we continue to grow, it’s becoming increasingly vital that we talk about ourselves in ways that make sense to artists with whom we’d like to work, with colleagues from other companies, with prospective board members, and – perhaps most dauntingly – potential funders.
So, I’m curious. How do you talk about the things you love? What do you say? How do you persuade others that they should care about it just as deeply as you do? How do you find the words?
I believe that your vehicle for expression (prose) is the stumbling block. Perhaps start with something more poetic then back into a form appropriate for your intended audience.
Well, the medium IS the message, isn’t it? In some ways, it’s a much a challenge to put these notions/feelings/beliefs/moods into words because we (meaning Jess and I, I guess) are so used to expressing ourselves in theatre – in soemthing three dimensional that changes over time – as opposed to in words, which you choose once and stay there on the page forever, pinning down what you were trying to say. And if you don’t quite capture it, you can’t say “next time try it like this…”
As a sidebar, this is why I’m glad a lot of funders also make it a point to see the work in question. It speaks a lot louder than words!