Something I’ve always liked doing from teenage years on. Something this website maybe is about. I have no definite plan as I start this page, except wanting to talk both about the process of ‘writing’ (these days it’s mostly ‘typing’ if one wants to be precise, but words evolve as the world does), and the physical act of writing (because a pen is different from a keyboard, in itself different from a touchscreen in my perceptions).
At school I always enjoyed writing essays, French assignments, and maybe English too? Never felt at the time that English lessons were about writing though. I enjoyed putting ideas together, trying to mix logic and style, arrive to a conclusion, that could be definite or open, or sometimes simply commenting on a text from a book, or a poem.
At some point I tried to make a little ‘newspaper’ sheet at school. Plenty to not be proud of in the shape it took, but I did enjoy sharing what was mostly satirical (ish) content about the school (year before the baccalauréat). And I even carried on doing an edition or two during holidays which fellow pupils seemed to enjoy. I have also always enjoyed writing letters (when it was a thing), and as essentially an introvert, it was the easiest way to express myself (remembering now that I didn’t know what to say when a mate tried to commit suicide at school, but I felt able to put it in writing. It’s not linked to the drama but just wanted essentially to express support to his girlfriend who was the most affected. Mind you, throughout a lot of years I ended up writing very long letters, putting all my thoughts and emotions in there, or sometimes just replying to the letters that were sent to me and making a point of addressing every bit in it.
The thing is, after the baccalauréat, as apparently you could go to Sciences Po (IEP) just on the back of a Mention Très Bien, I did (in theory) consider going there and that maybe being a journalist is what I’d have wanted to do. Looking back, maybe investigative journalism would have been something that would have suited me well (I never truly checked what studies were needed though), but in a family when most people seemed to be engineers by default, and because I was a good pupil in most topics, I did the ‘normal’ studies, thinking maybe it didn’t matter and I’d figure things out later and anyway a job is just a job. So yeah, I have some regrets (though engineering is safety, because it’s less of a shark-infested environment I guess, but I’ve always adapted so I may have survived a different environment too), but I made that ‘choice’ without thinking too much. Can’t say I was being forced or pushed towards it, but it certainly wasn’t what my dreams or wishes would have led me to, if only I’d listened to/believed in myself. But I am fine and happy enough with it now. Anyway, I digress from the topic again, but another aspect of (odd) writing appeared with my maths teacher in Terminale. He once said ‘J’aimerais que le devoir de mathématique soit un dialogue’. He was a very cool teacher, very good and definitely not a cold scientist, you could sense he saw maths as art and was a bit of a dreamer. And so one day, I went the extra mile and made a devoir de mathématiques that had lots of lots of writing, stylish or not. This was not a ‘marks out of 20’ one as it was a home one, so just letters but he gave me a ‘A++’ and was beaming when he talked about it to the class. And yeah, that made me happy, because it really wasn’t about the maths (though they were also perfect in there) and for me it was about telling a story. I re-did something similar two years later in Classe Préparatoire while putting the quote from this teacher as preamble, and it was very well received too. Obviously, especially in the latter case, it is not something a teacher of essentially ‘scientific’ pupils expects, I guess. And making other people happy has always made me happy.
When I had the big 2001-2002 crisis and was absolutely not happy about the job/career, I was asked (by the ‘fake’ psychiatrist, still no idea what he really was) what I would have liked to do, and I just said ‘writing’. Then obviously I got asked the annoying question ‘write what’? and that got me confused. Because I never thought of that, just that I liked ‘writing’, sort of an abstract concept. Asking me ‘what story would you write?’ was completely off-putting. When I think a bit more, of all the qualities I’ve had or the things I have done or written throughout the years, I sure could never have written novels or fictions. I like reading them, but my main qualities seem to always have been either re-using/improving/slightly modifying things written by others, pushing ideas, inventing the odd metaphor, using words for their logic or contradictions, or doing new things based on realities (the best ‘jokes’ have always been rooted in real encounters/situations). Creating things out of nothing is not my forte, but maybe that’s my inner laziness, or inhibitions from my education that mean my creativity (which I now understand does exist, my imagination can absolutely run wild based on extrapolations, but it’s like I’ve never completely felt free) is more often based on basic materials from others or from life itself. I did a few ‘articles (completely free-form improvisation) for the engineering school journal, but really couldn’t do on demand, the only decent one was about a strange evening with stormy weather. I like writing, it doesn’t mean I’m actually very good at it!
And in a way, for all the various motivations and ideas that have led me to get this site going and now to write a few ‘blogs’ pages, this website is mostly me indulging again in ‘writing’, albeit in a different way than before. So it feels apt that the first topic is ‘writing’.
But besides my own ‘creative’ pathways about writing, the other aspect is the physical one. Because I have always enjoyed the contact of the pen on paper, and the physical sensation associated with writing. Nowadays, I am too often in ‘notes taking’ mode and even when I used to write mostly a sort of journal physically (but I threw it all away as it was not legible), it often became just a blur, because I wanted to write at the speed of thought, meaning everything ends up being ‘doctor’s writing’, who the fuck can read the words? It was rather pointless. I do the same when typing these days. But when the mood took me and I felt just ‘right’, I liked to just write words, perfectly shaped, and without caring if I meant to write a sentence or a meaning. At times, I just enjoyed the act of writing, the sensuality of the pen gliding effortlessly on paper. And that’s one of the reasons I always try to have an ink (fountain) pen with me, while ballpens are an abomination : they don’t allow to write beautifully. I never did calligraphy (though I tried when I wanted to force myself to write with the left hand, an experiment I eventually dropped, but that may be for another blog about left/right handedness, something I find myself in a slightly odd position about), but sometimes, it really was a case of a certain physical feeling/emotion that shaped (literally) words. Some of the aesthetics of characters also came from….The Cure. No, really, seeing the lyrics on print on the sleeves of The Head On The Door and The Top had an influence on me. Not robotic font, just creative ways of shaping letters. In fact, to some extend I used that as a template to write a few greeting cards, and I also based my written ‘e’ s occasionally (still do) on The Top’s font.
See, there are a lot of aspects to ‘writing’, between the creative process and the physical sensations. The sensuality of it is now mostly lost in the digital world, though words can still sound and so there’s exploration to be made that way. And there again, I feel a difference between keyboards and touchpads. As I type on my computer right now, I still feel that physical sensation when keys go up and down (though not as deeply as with older styles of keyboards with bigger, deeper keys), and that plays a part in my ‘enjoyment’ of it, the touch, the rhythm, if I am in a good mood, they feel like a link to the real world and appeal to me. But I don’t think I could ever feel that typing on a touchscreen. Which is why ‘messenging’ on a phone or tablet can be a pain to me and I tend to get super lazy in my typing then (not just the screen often not offering space to visualise).
So yes, writing in the digital age is a little different, and I also don’t want to get lost into the idea that writing is my ‘main’ thing, but I guess I’ve always enjoyed words, reading, writing and playing with them. Sometimes it’s just logic, rhetoric without an actual meaning beyond aesthetics(I obviously am a product of both maths and literature in my tastes and education), and sometimes it’s the beauty of artful expression (which is why I’m glad I was led to add the page on poetry, more or less after a recent visit to Victor Hugo’s house (which I’d also visited with school a long long time ago) that brought Les Djinns back to my mind.. I don’t have a conclusion, but writing about writing as I just did is….whatever you want it to mean. It’s not meant to be that deep, but I enjoyed it.