Sunday, 7 October 2007

Jacques Derrida - Fear of Writing

I haven't read any Derrida since uni but I found this on youtube and thought it was worth sharing. I fully comprehend Derrida's experience of the necessity of writing when in the moment of writing.

Yet it fascinates me that the consequences of writing something subversive ironically become a concern only when he is in that liminal state between sleep and wakefulness. The 'vigilance' he refers to is - for me - his inner critic, the censor. Isn't the world lucky this vigilance comes to Derrida at that point rather than in the moment of writing?

Sometimes mine invokes fear in me even before the moment of writing. My concerns tend not to be as grand as Derrida's. Questions that plague me are 'Will this piece shock members of my family too much?', 'Is it too personal?', 'Will my readers believe this narrator (who kills or steals or sleeps with someone else's husband) is really me?' and the common one, 'Is this a load of rubbish?' Often these criticisms come afterwards, not in my half-sleep but in the penetrating light of day. Usually the 'load of rubbish' one and the readers believing the narrator is really me are right. The others tend to be moral dilemmas, not in the writing but in the desseminating. Should I publish this if its publication could cause a heart attack in my father? Generally, I believe that in writing the things that move me, in putting them out THERE, I am being true to myself and to my readers but there are some stories I will not share because I don't feel they are mine to share.

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