The Pen is Mightier?

This simple sketch is the result of my contemplating what this blog is really all about. Pencil sketches are this blog's raison d'etre , but I wouldn't be using French phrases if I wasn't obsessed with expressing myself in words. 'Blog' is now a literary genre and my sketches are not enough to sustain themselves without my writing about them.

I can't discuss technique the way a trained artist could, and the sketch is not an illustration of the text (since the sequence of events is usually vague idea....sketch...logorrhea.) So how to define the relationship between the drawing and writing? In the absence of actual readership, the prattling I do in type is a kind of conversation with the sketch. Or, if the imaginary reader finds the writing inane, perhaps the sketch is the two-dimensional equivalent of "Look at the birdie!"

I'm devoting an entry to these disorganized thoughts because of the kind of medicinal or developmental quality that some people in my life attribute to my writing. They have this idea that a blog is a good excuse to write, that it is linguistic exercise, or that it is a kind of stretching that will make me limber enough for a writing-based career. If mediocre drawings are what bring me to the keyboard, then fine.

Maybe there is a kind of inevitability to my "being a writer," but as much as I like to succeed I really dislike hearing "I told you so." There is no doubt that writing with frequency makes one a better writer (albeit a more self-conscious one) but better writing is the only thing it guarantees. I want everyone to think more complexly about what it is to be a writer than being a character played by Sarah Jessica Parker and working for some branch of Conde Nast publications. Encouraging me to be a better writer is one thing, imagining my New York apartment is another. I value writing, and I'd love to infuse my writing with enough energy that it can propel me somewhere, but I hope you'll leave it to me to figure out where that somewhere is.

Which brings me back to the sketches. Writing is my way of talking about the way things are. I don't write fiction; the essay is my favorite form. All other tenses exist in my drawings- the ways things were, might, ought, shouldn't , can't, and will be. I don't expect to see them in a gallery, but that doesn't mean they aren't valuable to me. So if we talk about the blog let's talk about the sketches too- what I did, might, ought, shouldn't, can't, and will draw. And if they aren't worth talking about well, then... why not?