Of creative bleeding...!

 
 By Vijay Phanshikar :
 
“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
- Ernest Hemingway

 

THIS is no oversimplification. Actually, it is very complex -- no matter the straightforward manner Ernest Hemingway has tried to put it. In other words, Hemingway suggests, you write from your heart -- unhesitatingly, clearly, openly and without reservation. Yet, all these do not contain the element ‘bleeding’ suggests -- deep hurt that you wish to share with others, or feel compelled to let others know in fair detail. This, too, does not actually state the process -- of writing -- fully and correctly. For, as one may ask, ‘if I have a private grief or a sense of hurt, then why should I in the first place want to share that with anybody else?’ No, no, Hemingway does not talk of such persons who do not wish to share their personalised feeling -- of hurt or of honour -- with anybody. He is talking about those who have the itch (or a sense of compulsion) to share their thoughts and emotions with others. And he is also talking about those who want to put the pen to the paper -- the prospective writers of sorts. To such persons, Ernest Hemingway says, in effect, ‘do not worry much. Sit down at a typewriter -- or a computer or with a paper and pen -- and start bleeding -- in the sense start putting together on the paper your thoughts and emotions and experiences about your deep-seated cognitive revolutions. To this process Hemingway calls ‘bleeding’.

 

In other words, ‘bleeding’ suggests that the process of writing is traumatic, so to say. First point of traumatic encounter comes when one faces a blank paper. The trauma begins with ‘how to start’ and goes into deeper zones such as finding the right first-word, or finalising the format of the proposed write-up, or deciding upon the extent of detail to be shared with the audience at the other end of the spectrum. All this is complex, to say the least. Everything of it ! For, every choice is a wringer in a way. It takes all the energy of the writer, whether novice or seasoned, to put together the first words. And this happens every time with all writers. It’s all plain traumatic -- that may drive the weak-hearted to frustration. So, as the writer struggles to grapple with these issues, he bleeds in multiple ways.

 

He cries, he laughs, he grieves, he shouts, he swears. So he bleeds -- as he communicates his sense of deep emotion -- or hurt or of honour. True, with practice, the process gets easier to complete. Yet, the sense of bleeding continues (though only fittingly felt subsequently). Possibly, this may happen in case of painting or sculpting or producing any art -- as the artist may have to struggle with a similar blank sheet or paper or an unhewn stone or an unshaped blob of wet, ready-to-be-shaped material. But clear it is that each time a new idea gets into the process of creation, the artist sort-of bleeds. No matter how Hemingway tried to oversimplify it, the process has its unavoidable trauma -- at whose altar many an artist or writer or painter or sculptor or singer has given up. But if the person ensures that moment of first bleed, then he -- or she -- makes the grade. What ensues is a flowing art that rises above the mundane.