The Writer [Flash Fiction]

In itself, for itself, the writing . . .

How much more could be said about how my writing–how any writing–is indeterminable. Why I write could be reduced to an act of survival. I would not live if I did not write. How could I? I understand the rhetorical edge. It cuts me at its consideration. I do not understand how even hacks do not know that they need to write in order to live, not just the money they need to perpetuate the idea they are surviving by their pay check, which might not be a mistake in their assessment.

I know I only know what I think after I have written, so I only know what the writing is after the fact. Existence does precede essence. I have always had affinities for existentialism for existentialists, for what has been called existentialist fiction, existentialist philosophy, existentialist films. What this says about me or my writing has neither been determined by me or will be determined within this essay. I put a lot on trial in the pages and pages I write. I have been writing for a very long time now. I almost cannot see a time when I did not, or if I could–that is, when I do, I almost do not recognize me.

The writing is what it is how it is when it is for whomever it is who reads it. I am the writing; the writing is me. I understand this mutual and reciprocal relationship between actor and act. What is determinable is what gets written when it does get written; the facts around the writing and as a result of having written are the only determinable things about the writing. There is no essential writing before the existence of what has been written. I repeat myself here in other words. What the writing is is only in the writing in itself. I am only what and who I am in myself.