The literary circle I was part of many years ago, in high school, has recently turned 30. On this occasion I was invited to write something about those years. As part of the resulting text, I included what I called some rules or reminders for writing (and artistic creation in general), which I am now posting here, in a slightly modified version:
• It is important to discover other visions and points of view and it is important to remain loyal to your own vision (in a way which – it should go without saying – is not one and the same with obtuseness.)
• It is important not to be cryptic or pretentious for the sake of it and it is essential to not make compromises (for recognition, fame, money, acceptance and so on.)
• It’s healthy to have around you people you can trust, who can give you reliable feedback and, at the same time, one should remember that the main (and probably the only) authority is their own being.
• What is said is at least as important as what isn’t said. What is shown is at least as important as what isn’t shown. Art should reveal both the visible and the invisible.
• Each person’s timing, path, and vision are unique. No one sees the world the same way as you do – and the very fact of knowing how you truly see the world, beyond all parasitic, accumulated baggage and influences, is often a whole process itself. This subjectivity (for lack of a better, less-charged term) must be assumed as such and it should transpire in your creation. It is not a limitation, but a form of a great freedom and a manifestation of splendour – in a sense, each person creates the world for the very first time. It is not relativism for the sake of relativism (the dangerous, ignorant, and cowardly type). It says, instead: this is how the world looks like from this unique point where consciousness focalized itself, which is my very being, with all its particularities – a facet of infinity.
• All these „shoulds” are mine. Each person creates – and assumes responsibility for – their own rules.
(Featured image: © Anca Tăbleț / Viziunea Interioară)