Journals, Jokes, and What We Leave Out

Writing isn’t the truth, it is the way to the truth.

I read a fictionalised version of the above sentence yesterday in Stephen King’s latest novel. I replaced ‘fiction’ with ‘writing’, creating my truth.

“Think about how much of you lives between the words you’ll never tell a soul.”

“How much are you willing to expose?”

A friend of mine, Christopher Robin, asked these questions and a few more. These questions became my kernel.

Kernels of truth

There’s a hypothesis that every stereotype contains a kernel of truth. I’m a believer in that hypothesis and believe it applies to writing as well, my writing anyway.

Everything I write contains truth, at least in whatever ways I can see it. My fiction contains more than a kernel or two of truth. I don’t think I’m imaginative enough to create something entirely from scratch. It all starts somewhere. A kernel.

There’s an age-old class experiment: one person in class stands in front of the room. They may speak, read, or simply stand there. The rest of the class writes about the person standing. The gist of the experiment is that what’s written says far more about the audience than the object of the writing, the standing person.

“How much are you willing to expose?”

We expose far more of ourselves than we realise. Every time we write, we’re exposing a glimpse into our world, our mind, our soul — even when writing about brainiac soul suckers from a parallel universe.

Journaling a parent’s worst fear

“What? How can you not be completely honest in your journal?” Christopher Robin

Well, I guess I start by not writing in a journal. I don’t write in journals any more, my brain and hand are too out of sync. I write like a 5-year-old.

I write in short bursts of words. These days, I write primarily on my laptop. If I can’t get to my laptop, or can’t be bothered, I’ll scribble on a scrap of paper — whatever thought bubble, sentence, quote or brain fart that’s in my head. All so I don’t lose that gem before I can write ‘properly’ on my laptop.

I load my desk with random bits of scrawl. You can’t read them because even I can’t decipher them.

I love the craft of joke writing and stand-up comedy. Playing with words, re-arranging them, swapping other words in and out, working towards what sounds and feels right.

Speaking of jokes, this one’s still an all-time favourite of mine:

“I’m a loser because my father’s an alcoholic. No, your father’s an alcoholic because you’re a loser.” — Jeff Stilson, comedian

Jeff Stilson wrote that joke back in the I’m-a-mess-because-my-parents-did-me-wrong blame era. When we become parents, we always tell ourselves we will not make the same mistakes our parents did. If we’re lucky, we don’t. And then we make our own parenting mistakes.

Life goes on.

Decades ago, my mother faced possible life-saving surgery. I found three sealed envelopes in her bedroom, her handwriting on the fronts. One letter to dad, one to my brother, one to me. The thought of what was in those letters spooked me and I left them where I found them.

A couple of months ago, when clearing out mom’s things, I looked for those letters. Would they still be there? Her bedroom hadn’t changed in all those years. I would have read them now, but those letters were no longer there.

What was written in those letters of mom’s? I’ll never know now.

No one said life has to give you all the answers.

Vomit scars, walls, and living in my own head

I’ve been told, on more than one occasion, that I have walls. Seriously, like Jericho, China and Trump are but Lego brick builds compared to my impediments.

Those walls have been stormed, scaled, and some even reduced to rubble in recent years. Aging and writing have made those wins possible. While I have written a lot of humorous and even (*gasp*) shallow crap, I’ve also left a lot of myself in the articles and posts that I have written.

Do I need to write about those dark moments of childhood domestic distress? Of that moment I blew up my marriage? Of sitting in an emergency room at 3 a.m., as doctors and nurses scrambled to save my son’s life? Those early morning ER memories still haunt me in the shower some days.

Not every word needs to be written. I know it will come out in my writing eventually, if it hasn’t already. As writers, we spend a lot of alone time, time in our own heads. Spending too much time in my head comes with a lot of risk. I have to balance that out with life away from writing.

Is exposing needed? Are things sometimes better left unsaid? Left to the past rather than picked at like a scab?

Regardless of what we write down, or don’t, life will go on.

And yes, I have vomit scars. My son never gave much warning time between “Dad…” and the spewing forth of stomach acid.

Final Thought

There’s as much power in what we leave unsaid as there is in the said.

“A successful book is not made of what is in it, but what is left out of it.” — Mark Twain

Maybe that quote applies, in part, to life as well.