The Glorious Messiness of Writing

I am following a great blog titled, Literary Legs, written by Laura Page.  The blog is witty and well thought through.  She has done a terrific post called, The Flaws are Fine.  With Laura's indulgence, I am including it in my blog

The Flaws are Fine

"I've noticed something. When I'm writing in my journal, which I do frequently, my writing is much different than it is when I'm writing elsewhere. I don't use whole sentences. I use a ton of elipses. I can stretch a single inchoate sentence over a page and a half. Basically, I describe my thoughts and the events in my day in a series of fragments and run-ons. And rather than be dismayed by this, I think it's kind of cool. I'm mean, I'm a grammar nazi and I can be pretty neurotic when it comes to correct punctuation and usage and whatnot (I'm that girl who deletes her own tweets and comments/status post updates on facebook when I discover an error and reposts the edited version). Still, the "messiness" of my informal writing makes me happy. It sort of takes for granted modifying circumstances. It's raw. It's life.

I would like to bring some of this disorder to my creative writing. Some fragmented, incomplete elements. I think this could make my prose a little more human. Somebody once told me that ancient Chinese art as well as many other great works of art throughout history, often have flaws that the artists deliberately included. I make a comparison in my head between these subtly flawed works of visual art and something akin perhaps to "stream of consciousness" in fictional prose. Both are ways to convey authentic human experience.

So maybe a little "messiness" or something that is just a little "off" in our creative work is not a bad thing. Maybe it's a really beautiful thing. Maybe it's what makes it uniquely our own."

This is just a sample of Laura's writing.  Please take a stroll through this marvelous blog.  You'll be glad you did!