On My Way

Ilove to play with words, their multiple meanings, their etymology, and their evocative power. I wonder about my sentences: Do they sound right? Is what they say true? Do they inspire the next sentence, the next paragraph, and eventually lead to the article, story, or novel I had in mind? I go over a text many times, cutting here, adding there, listening to the melody and rhythm, and changing words when they don't fit the music. In each revision I notice something to improve that previously escaped me—as if what is meant to be expressed were still halfway in my mind and would only slowly make its way out on paper—the place where the errors occur.

What is this particular pleasure in writing that I share with almost all who have written in this column? Starting a new writing project always feels challenging, but mostly I anticipate enjoying what I will be doing. It's like falling in love with the subject I'm approaching. I know, only if there is Eros and passion in what I do, only if I engage with love and care, will it be good. I usually start out with an idea that has sparked and now preoccupies my interest, at first gingerly feeling my way into it, then proceeding more vigorously and at times writing as if in a fever (only to later discard much of it), and eventually continuing more steadily, as if now moving in familiar territory. At this point I believe my psychoanalytic text will achieve what I was hoping for, and then writing is just enjoyable. By contrast, when I work in fiction such familiarity would be delusive, because if the writing proceeds too smoothly it might be flat and miss the vibrancy of an unconscious pulse that pushes imagination—mine, and the reader's as well.

To bring something new into the world is both laborious and exciting (to “give birth” to a book is a well-known trope). Whether I write a scientific paper or a short story, a theoretical book or a novel, sublimated procreation provides pleasure after all! But there is something else: When I