Day 2

Day 2: Is writing secret or are there secrets you cannot write about?

When you read someone's diary and the writer suddenly skips one day, do you assume that the writer did not have anything to say that particular day or that he or she skipped it on purpose? It could be either. I once thought that writing about myself and my own experiences was the most selfish, boring thing you could do. I believed that the writer should distance herself or himself from anything personal or private and write about something entirely different. Well, then. What is that something exactly?

Maybe some writers are only able to write about certain events and situations in past tense. "Yesterday was my birthday." Or "Yesterday I met an old friend." They need a certain distance. It does not mean that they don't want to write about it right away. If they had, the story could've been different, maybe more honest. "I am mad at her for not writing to me all these years" instead of "We had not seen each other for so long."

From early age, when I first started writing in my early teen years, I have consulted my diary entries on many occasions. My first novel, "When the tigers smoked" (Da tigrene røykte, Damm 2007) is loosely based on my own experience as an adoptee traveling back to my birth country South-Korea even though the narrative self in the novel, Katinka, was very different from my own, personal voice. Maybe my novel would've been different had it not been for the fact that my diaries from the year I traveled to South-Korea, 1991 and 1992 respectively, are missing. Was there a secret hiding in those diary entries? I will never know.

My theory is this: If you're a writer or want to be a writer and you want to write something, then start with yourself. It can be simple, it can be complicated, but at least, it will be honest. After all, one of the most famous books of all times was a diary, Anne Frank's Diary. Not only was it never suppose to be published (aka secret), but after her death it was even banned (considered too honest about being Jewish) in many countries for a while. Franz Kafka, another famous writer, also wrote diary. He always wrote strictly about literature and writing, never about his private life. He kept that part a secret. Virginia Woolf's diaries is being read as part of her authorship. The common thing I find between these writers, are that they never intended these diaries to be published.

Maybe there are secrets you cannot write about. But think about it. If there were no secrets left to tell, we wouldn't have some much fun writing about them.

Maybe this blog would've been different if I wrote it last night. After all, I was suppose to post it yesterday.