Bleeding on the Page

 

Just what is “Bleeding on the Page?” Does it mean one must slice their flesh and fill an inkwell (or ink cartridge) with one’s own life-force?

Does it require a writer to bleed themselves of everything else to create something beyond the ordinary?

Does it mean that the scribe needs drop great droplets of blood as she impales the words on the page, thus impaling them into the mind of the reader?

Well…no, and yes.

To create something that will endure the creator must suffer. It may be The Girl with the Pearl Earring by Johannes Vermeer.

It may be The David by Gian Bernini.

It may be the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo.

This suffering can also bring great pleasure in the creation; however, at some point the artist must suffer, must bleed. 

In the process of true writing one must rip something from inside and leave it on the page. This makes the words become something more than words; it makes them a part of the writer, and then, and only then, they have the potential to become part of the reader. This gives an ownership to the reader. The reader becomes a part of this process as they connect to the story through their own experiences and trials.

To accomplish this as they say in sports, one must “leave everything on the field.”

This is the only way to develop a connection with someone a thousand miles away that does not know you. You become connected through the collective experiences of life. The writer who is willing to give all, walks on his own intrinsic fault line, allows the earthquake to overflow upon the page, and if the writer also has craft, he will take those storms and place them inside his characters. 

Remember how you felt when you read (or watched) the death of Sirius Black in J.K. Rowling’s modern classic The Order of the Phoenix? 

Whom who has read Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights cannot feel the complicated torment of Heathcliff as we struggle to comprehend his fiery passion and eternal love as it conflicts with his equally powerful lust for revenge?

Or is it possible to not truly feel when we read of Quasimodo’s death and dedication as he lies reverently down next to Esmeralda’s cast away corpse, and then dies of starvation, embracing her body? And does this not move one to the core when many years later, their bodies are dug up and the skeletons which have become forever intertwined. When the poor hunch-back is pulled away his bones crumble into dust.

 When he wrote The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Victor Hugo bled.

There are many writers. No one knows what separates a good, even great writer from an awful one. Certainly there are some people that just cannot make the words do their bidding; this is okay. Everyone has something to offer in this world.

Nevertheless, since this is a writing blog it must remain true to the context of the subject that gave it life.

As writers we must bleed on every page. It matters not if our book becomes a best seller, an award-winning example of literary genius, or if it even reaches publication. If the writer can draw forth that extra something, that thing only he or she has, then the text will be a testament to its creator. That is how books reach the status of immortality. That is how words on a page become actual memories we carry with us and draw from, often unknowingly, all of our life.

As Ernest Hemingway said, “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”