Jordan Kit

Dear Alicia,

I think now of your letter and I can’t help but dwell upon the idea of honesty, of that burning authenticity that drives writers to pursue some higher calling in their craft.

I think of Hemingway, with his sparse but loaded language. In short, declarative sentences he could paint a picture so elaborate and so intimately tangible that I truly feel the falling rain as a character might.

I think of Kerouac, whose writing might start to seem flowery and bored in certain areas, but then absolutely combust with a flight of fancy. The lethargy suddenly replaced by an ecstasy—the feeling of someone recounting a story to you and suddenly grabbing you by the shoulders and excitedly regaling a beloved story.

I think of my own writing, as vain as that might seem, and realize that sometimes in writing we find a reality that is more loosely based in facts but takes on a more real truth than fact could ever support. The truth of fiction reaches so much further with a supreme yen for informing. With our characters carefully formed and created and composed as they only could be, we tell life as only life truly is, beyond the fact that obfuscates.

So write on, Alicia. There will always be a need for authentic writers, because they are like diviners trying to find out that last bit more than we knew before.

 

With warmest regards,

Jordan Taylor Kit

Read more by Jordan at jordankit.com