Writing the Body

Here's what I can say for sure: this class has pushed me way outside of my comfort zone.

I was thinking about this as I was trying to write assignment 1, and again as I was trying to write assignment 2. Neither of these tasks seemed conducive to the kind of writing I usually do, and I think that I was immediately thrown by that. I think I was immediately thrown by the theme of the course as a whole, to be honest. What could I possibly have to say about the body? And as I tried to think of something to write about, I felt a bit lost at sea, a bit awash in an ocean of doubt and uncertainty, a bit overwhelmed by projects that seemed to be far too far above my skill level. Worst of all, perhaps, I felt... well, not very creative.

This is actually very interesting to me, now that I think about it, because some of my favourite texts use the body symbolically to suggest all kinds of cool psychological anxieties. Books like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Frankenstein. And there's all kinds of other ways the body is used in fiction too, like to remind us of our frailty, our imperfection, our mortality. The limits we push our bodies to can remind us of the limits our bodies keep us to. The brilliance of fiction is that we can challenge all of those things - really, the story possibilities are endless.

I really want to take this opportunity to say thank you to my classmates at this point. Every single person who sits in that circle with me every week is so, so brilliant. And you've all been instrumental in helping me see that there are so many possible ways to approach these assignments, and that my way can't really be wrong. That has eased my mind a great deal.

My Honour's project supervisor believes that writing is at its best when it comes from a place of uncertainty, of disconnection. He also believes that it's okay to go back to something, re-imagine it, see what kind of echoes remain and look at it from a new perspective, end up in a new place. He was referring to a literary technique called anaphora, the idea that you come back to the same point and begin again. But I think the idea of it applies to the way I've had to imagine my writing in this class, and then the way I've had to re-imagine it. And I think he might be right about a few things. I've felt uncomfortable with the tasks that I've been faced with, and even when I've started I haven't had any idea where I was going to end up. Several times I've had to go back to the beginning. And part of me feels like things might be turning out okay.

But this does lead me to wonder... Before, when I was sure, when I felt comfortable... Did I ever write anything that was good?