Is Writing a Process to Help Us Remember or Forget?

[lesbiaphrodite]

When we write, do we do it to remember or to forget?

I have been pondering this question a lot of late. Most of the time when I write, I base my work on personal experiences of some sort. My writing is not in the 'confessional style,' for sure, but it is a way for me to document the past. And, then, mysteriously, when it's written, I feel that I have put the ideas to rest, the memories are laid aside for others to discover/come to terms with/maybe sometimes benefit from, and I can let them go.

What about for you?

 

[Lady_Guenivere]

My writing is theraputic for me as well. Often it helps me to get thoughts or ideas out of my mind...things that in real life I would not have the opportunity (or the nerve) to do. Once it has been "released" there is almost a sense of relief (if that makes sense).

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I dont believe in memory, so the question has no meaning for me.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Mine is purely a game, possibly spiced with wishful thinking.

 

[Elianna]

I write because I've always loved a good story and it's fun to get immersed in a different world. Writing and reading have always been an outlet of creativity and an escape for me. I don't write aout my experiences. That makes it too "real" and personal. Not escape-y enough for me, I suppose.

I always remember.

 

[oggbashan]

Once I have completed a story I can forget it.

While it is incomplete it is a nagging presence.

Og

 

[sr71plt]

I write to entertain. The origin of that is all sorts of things--including moving into new, unexperienced ground.

 

[lesbiaphrodite]

Almost everything I have here on Literotica is pure fiction, with the exception of the odd event or detail here or there. So, for Lit., I write purely to entertain or to expand on fantasies.

But, when I write and publish outside of this realm, it is totally different. I write to pass along my stories (experiences) and then forget them.

 

[Freefall_mc]

to remember or forget

Doesn't a writer serve their own needs at the time? Whether to remember, distort, forget, or embellish a desire? Not a real writer...so...*shrugs*.

I do not ever choose to forget; rather, to learn from, accept, and metamorphose it into something constructive.

 

[sr71plt]

I agree with Freefall. If I want to forget something, I sure as hell don't put it in a story.

 

[kinkyretep]

I think its very plausible. I have read pieces from various authors with a fixation on a specific topic who say they write to express personal experiences they couldn't quite grasp or allow them selves to fully acknowledge at the time.

Personally I wrote for the future. Most of the things I've written are things I tried afterwards, writing about it was a way to toy with the idea before trying it.

 

[oggbashan]

I agree with Freefall. If I want to forget something, I sure as hell don't put it in a story.

My stories are not based on my life. My life has provided experience to enable me to write stories but they are not about me nor about what I have or haven't done.

If they were, for some of them I'd need professional help.

I exorcise the story from my brain once it is written and posted. Since some of my ideas are seriously weird, it can be a relief to complete a story and move on.

Og

 

[Liar]

I write to take the brain out for a walk. It needs to chase rabbits, sniff butts and pee on lamp posts once in a while, or it gets depressed. And poops in the hallway.

 

[jomar]

An idea hits me, another turns me on so off I go...some I start and they take off in unexpected directions, others I have complete control over. Some I write to experiment in different styles and categories and others to see if I can do it.

I don't think, for me, it has to do with remembering or forgetting, but sometimes I do have to let it out.

 

[sr71plt]

My stories are not based on my life. My life has provided experience to enable me to write stories but they are not about me nor about what I have or haven't done.

If they were, for some of them I'd need professional help.

I exorcise the story from my brain once it is written and posted. Since some of my ideas are seriously weird, it can be a relief to complete a story and move on.

Og

Some of my stories are based on my life (a whole series of that written here).

But for the most part when I sit down to write a story, my first thought is "what is a new twist on this or that?" I'm not thinking of exposing and exorcising any particular angst--although I do, on occasion, purposely deal with an "issue." I write for all sorts of different reasons and to speak to a wide variety of audiances. That's what's fun about the writing.

 

[Freefall_mc]

"...to discover/come to terms with..."
yes

For those with technical writing skills and ability to freehand, to whom structured creativity flows more naturally...
Can writing become a compulsive behavior to satisfy (not talking daily journal here)? a need to relent to a physical yearning in order to sooth everyday frustrations?
Or I suppose getting caught up in your own moment would suffice. hmm
just musing

Not that I'm seeking to substitute a vice. Or capable of.

 

[DeeZire]

Some of what I write serves the purpose of turning a bad memory into a good one.

 

[Freefall_mc]

wait...
guess I didn't think of "issue"
or even an audience

If im the audience, does that also make me the issue?

 

[Freefall_mc]

therapuetic

And if for yourself, the need to put more thoughtfulness into it...
but also at some time wanting validation of worthiness.

 

[TxRad]

My reason is simple. i wanted to write when I was young. I never got time or around to it. Then I got a computer and a word program. Now there was no reason not to. I also have more free time now.

Also it gets these damned crazy stories out of my head.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

I write to take the brain out for a walk. It needs to chase rabbits, sniff butts and pee on lamp posts once in a while, or it gets depressed. And poops in the hallway.

'Zackly!

 

[Palba_Noruda]

When we write, do we do it to remember or to forget?

I have been pondering this question a lot of late. Most of the time when I write, I base my work on personal experiences of some sort. My writing is not in the 'confessional style,' for sure, but it is a way for me to document the past. And, then, mysteriously, when it's written, I feel that I have put the ideas to rest, the memories are laid aside for others to discover/come to terms with/maybe sometimes benefit from, and I can let them go.

What about for you?

"...to discover/come to terms with..."
yes

For those with technical writing skills and ability to freehand, to whom structured creativity flows more naturally...
Can writing become a compulsive behavior to satisfy (not talking daily journal here)? a need to relent to a physical yearning in order to sooth everyday frustrations?
Or I suppose getting caught up in your own moment would suffice. hmm
just musing

Not that I'm seeking to substitute a vice. Or capable of.

Ha, that's funny.

I think I write sometimes to document what I was up to on a given day. Not like journaling what happened that day, per se, but as a way to document what I was doing at the very moment of writing. So even if I'm working on fiction, it is a non-fiction documentation of a real event. Like if I go to the library and write from 7pm to 8pm, when I'm done, the work I've done is a documentation of what I was doing from 7-8 on that given day. I like that. Kind of like a sculpture or painting in that regard. I'm not interested specifically in trying to figure out why I wrote what I wrote, but in broad strokes, I believe I'm gaining some sort of different perspective to my own processes of emoting and thinking.

I also like to process old writing. When you work with old notebooks, it's kind of like looking back on dreams. I have some mad-lib kind of exercises and very broad structural exercises I'll do, and instead of coming up with ideas from scratch, I go through old writing files I've printed off and take the ideas from there, kind of randomly, and stick them in these new and different structures. It's a satisfying exercise. It's kind of like taking a chunk of old writing and considering it to be a stand-in for your current subconcious. Sometimes I come across things I don't particularly remember having written. Old notebooks are testaments to the whole life-is-but-a-dream thing. I've been working my way up to this for a few years, so the new materials I generate seem to lend themselves to the process.

I'm more interested in remembering. I like how in some fiction, the author will show thoughts and feelings in relation to "outside" action.

I'm also lately preoccupied with how in life I can be thinking very different things in the old internal monologue that have seemingly nothing to do with what is happening around in the outside world.

I think it's also fun to look back at old notebooks and reprocess the shit just as a way to contextualize things. Personally, I find it hard to find some sort of "right" perspective on my life on any given day. But through writing, I have begun to feel differently about how my internal and external work together. That's my current writing project.

On a side note, on July 30, I overwrote about 70 hours of writing. (I overwrote that document with a bunch of poems about masturbation, of all things.) It was all my raw material for like four months. I was doing a two-pronged approach to writing, processing old stuff and generating new stuff. I lost four months of the new stuff. So I still have something to show for that time, but I'm still very sad about it. My whole writing deal depends on a very slow accumulation of words and memories and poems and "sketches" of daily events, so I lost a big chunk of stuff I was excited about working with later. If you haven't backed up your work lately, do it now, huh?

I'm thinking of starting a new project where I print off all the forum posts and emails and IM conversations I've had for a given time, then taking that and running it through some kind of processing exercise. I have one where I look randomly at a book or magazine or newspaper and just drift my eyes over the paper and select random words and write them down in a way that makes these weird surreal sentences but I don't worry at all about what is going down on the paper. I make seven-word lines, enough to fill one page. I do this three or four times a week, if I go very fast I can fill a page in fifteen minutes. It's spooky when you look back at what you did, because you see that you selected some of the same words over and over again, and you start to see that you selected words that have some correlation to life events, kind of like looking at dreams and seeing connections. It's also an interesting way to see how different books have different vocabularies. So I was thinking of selecting words randomly from all emails and IMs and forum posts, I have a lot of emails close to 3,000 in my gmail account. It will be a challenge just to print them all off!

 

[water_side]

My first two of my stories were not written to remember or forget, but to express (and, like you suggest, to also exorcise) a particularly long lived fantasy of mine. I sort of managed the expression part (even though the writing was crap), but instead of putting the fantasy to rest, I just ended up feeding it. Having said that, I also, felt a sort of relief or liberation in having finally got in the open, so to speak.

 

[Freefall_mc]

Palba...I empathize with your loss of work. Backup backup backup..and label.

I love your word selection/sentence exercise, think I'll use that.

 

[Bianca_Sommerland]

Love to write. Love to escape from real life. I'm never bored when I'm writing and I hate being bored. Pretty simple *just don't ask Freud*