The Loss of a Voice
Now that I have this gaping wound in my life with little or no traumatic events to speak of, I'm conflicted about what to actually write about on this blog. Anything that I might want to write about doesn't seem all that interesting and, for the most part, I feel like I'd be repeating previous posts, a trend I'd like to avoid at all costs. So, what I'm left with is a dilemma that must face every writer at some point: what happens when you have nothing to say? I know, in some way I'm already contradicting myself by essentially rewriting a previous post about writer's block, which was the post previous to the last long one, but this is different in many regards. In that previous post, I chose to focus on my personal disappointment in the direction of fiction being written today. I got way off topic and turned that post into a literary critique. This post, however, will be somewhat more directly focused on my own inability to generate interesting topics for writing about on this site. In many ways, I think I've exhausted my ability to write about topics that interest me. I'm not saying that I can't write period, or that I've lost the ability to write in a coherent manner. It's just that I'm noticing more and more that the topics that interest me neither lend themselves to this kind of forum nor do they make interesting writing in general. I would go so far as to say that I've lost my "voice." Now, if I told the professor who hooked me on creative writing that I was on the verge of losing my "voice," he'd hit the proverbial roof. However, I was looking through some of my older writings, poetry for the most part, and it seemed to me that I've fallen into a repetitive pattern of words, themes, etc. I'm certainly not clamoring for more tragedy in my life, or any of the major life-altering events that might produce words and inspiration for them. However, I feel strongly that there are definite points that define an artist's career as over. There are definite high points and low points, and when the low points seem to outnumber the highs, perhaps it's time to turn in the final product. There's nothing sadder than seeing an artist trying, in vain, to reclaim past glories with lackluster efforts that only prolong the long fall from grace. I think there are many novelists and a good portion of musicians that are guilty of this very practice, and it serves as nothing more than tarnish on what was once a respectable career in letters, art, or music. With luck, I haven't reached that point yet, but I'm not one that feels the need to prolong something that should have ended a long time ago. Going out on a high note should be the one thing that we strive for in life.