the writer—me, full of ego.
i am the sh*t
I am becoming convinced you need to take generous douses of your ego to be a decent writer—I am not even saying good or great. Because I'm swiping through David Foster Wallace and this other one; what's his name again? And after every two or three perfectly-executed, scalpel-sharp sentences, I see my own talent bleeding ugly, gutted to rags in my hands. That's why I opened this note, out of a brimming jealousy and a frothing admiration; it's one, odd strange mix because it doesn't matter how many angelic works I've read or how many exists in the world, none of it makes as much sense if I don't write my own masterpiece. That's the ego there: proud, bold, naked. Or else I'd just lie comfortably in Wallace's cushiony words and stay there.
Deep down, I feel destiny; I always sense there is something I could add to any new obsession I pick up, some personal touch, some PaulMaahesque fingerprint no matter how light, and it is ego because I think somehow I am special, that I am the sh*t and this makes me rebel, let me admit. Read: experiment. I’d introduce some personal twist if it's some rap verse or a piece of poetry. I'd "innovate". No I am not saying the world is a sour pot and I am salt. I just like to show myself … in my work. And there is a difference between bending the rules because you're "master that's mastered it"1 and being the kid who’s rapping his fingers on the table, impatient at the naturally slow infusion of rules. And convention. And tradition. It's why I don't like Elements of Style. Anyways I am doomed. Either I play hide-and-seek with disciplined, true education forever and suffer deservedly. But if the world somehow views me as prodigy and hails me for "pushing the boundaries" (I pray at night), my true students, themselves chauvinists of personal idiosyncracy will ensure my "legacy" doesn't survive. The rules I lay will be Latin or some proto-Latin. Ego smothers ego.
“Writing is rewriting”. But I am in love with my first drafts. I edit, yes but I don't know how to do it without thumbing through the text multiple times and then rolling my eyes at the final draft wondering where my love for the piece went. Seems my brain goes over-analytical and scratches out any sauce, while cleaning up those phlegm-coated sentences. People have told me they loved my works very dearly, and they didn't know they were first drafts. The well-edited works don’t "do well" (but let me see how this one does). Sometimes I do tell them it's a first draft, and something in their face contorts. Like, their eyes do something and I like to think it is awe but it could be envy or something sinister. I understand. I love a writer's works so much I want to sleep with them (the works, please), then somehow I just get jealous of them (the writer), then my feelings plateau into this valley of resignation: first; they are this good because they worked so hard and they have earned it. They really don't deserve me swiping past their newsletter issues, cursing under my breath. Second, if I worked as hard I could be as good and that's consolation.
Every good writing advisor says to be brutal with editing, to launder the puke-soaked first drafts, maybe multiple times, and there's me, glowing with pride at this very one. Because it’s so "raw", so "me". Aside any grammatical or spelling errors, if I touch this thing, oh my God, I'd be filled with hate, this piece'd feel pretentious. I'd just hate it.
My goals are ego. Tom Bissell wrote about the myth of literary fate and how we have only Chance to thank for Kafka and Moby-Dick. Great works have survived for us, not by virtue of their … virtue but by series of unnerving coincidences. You should read Unflowered Aloes (the first essay in Magic Hours). It's perfect and depressing. When I say, I want to be one of the greatest essayists of all time (which is just shy of saying, I want to be the greatest), I am feigning ignorance of the factors that can affect skill, success, and acceptability. And here is the diagnosis of my egomania. Greatness is an estimation of skill, right? By the most people, right? I think I have some latent power to manifest this in spite the odds. Someone will read this instead of something else, and despite the millions of posts that will be dumped on the internet today. Billions of billions of words and they'll pick these lines. I am some sh*t indeed.
Even this form—the essay is fertile land for the ego. I have to be as interested in myself and in what I have to say. As interested as I am in Ancient Egypt and Kendrick Lamar. As interesting as hip-hop celebrity wars and what Elon Musk is doing now at DOGE. But the topic is: me. Hallelujah! How can someone work on such a topic "so frivolous and so vain[?]2". Why are you even reading this? No, no. Please do. It makes me feel good.
with love & ink (& ego),
emmanuel
“Kendrick is master that mastered it” — Lamar line on Momma, off To Pimp a Butterfly (2015). And boy, didn’t he show off his mastery!
From the introduction to Michel de Montaigne’s Complete Essays addressed to the reader. Montaigne, “the Father of the essay” unlike me, advised his reader not to spend his leisure in reading his book as the topic was “vain”. Hundreds of years down the line, see!