I am not a scribe. When you talk to me, you let me walk into your mind. You let me pick up and examine your thoughts; to experience your feelings; to rejoice in your exultation and suffer in your disappointment. I listen. I don’t interrupt. I let the words flow out as I nod and understand. My eyes don’t leave your face while my hand scribbles down memories. Once you’re done, I write. I write those words you couldn’t bring to mind at that moment. I bring to life that passion not expressed in your voice but evident in the sparkle of your eyes and your clenched hands. I build visions and open vistas before your reader with mere words, words that come from your mind, yet words that would never have formed themselves in your thoughts. I am not your scribe. I am much more.
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Rebellion
I am not a scribe. When you talk to me, you let me walk into your mind. You let me pick up and examine your thoughts; to experience your feelings; to rejoice in your exultation and suffer in your disappointment. I listen. I don’t interrupt. I let the words flow out as I nod and understand. My eyes don’t leave your face while my hand scribbles down memories. Once you’re done, I write. I write those words you couldn’t bring to mind at that moment. I bring to life that passion not expressed in your voice but evident in the sparkle of your eyes and your clenched hands. I build visions and open vistas before your reader with mere words, words that come from your mind, yet words that would never have formed themselves in your thoughts. I am not your scribe. I am much more.
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4 comments:
That would make you a ghost writer.
I wish it did. The ghost writer is acknowledged as the writer not publicly, but at least by the commissioner. I pull words, images and ideas from an inarticulate mind. I sift through streams of thoughts to gather those worth putting down on paper. Yet to my commissioner the work is not mine, since it expresses the commissioner's mind. In her consciousness I am merely a scribe. The work is hers alone.
I can quite understand this one.
Our works are an extension of us.
If my work tells the story of your work, it is still my own visualization, my own creation, my own child. No-one must take it away from me. At best, I may (may) tell you how thankful I am to you for the muse. Everything else is impersonation and theft.
I understand this because I have been a ghostwriter (no-one understands any other expression) for 20 years. Again, at different times, I found myself to be different things. A gab writer, a spin doctor, a scribe, a spokesperson, at times the alter ego.
On the one side is frustrated seeing 'noble' people's hypocrisy in the 'largeness' they expose in acknowledging their invisible 'image mentors'. On the other, it is intriguing to privately note and know that behind all greatness, is trapped a small insecure man or woman still wandering the 'who am I' desert.
But going past the rebellion, I found a good subject matter for a fictional work, which I am now working on. Nonetheless, your blog has been a good space to ventilate.
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