Harold Bloom talks about how writers clear a space for themselves. They know that there's no room for whatever they can write. You can't improve on the great writers you aspire to compete with. So you willfully 'misread' them - you write with their voice in a way that makes it seem like they copied from you instead of the other way around. Basically, you revise their work.
Harold Bloom's views don't appeal to me, but it's his thinking that excites me. I disagree with his conclusions but I like his working. His intellect is dazzling.
I think this idea about how writing allows us to clear space is compelling but not because writing allows great writers to evade the anxiety of influence but because I feel the truth of it. When you write you afford yourself a kind of freedom.
Anxiety, depression, benzo withdrawal, addiction, illness, fatigue, stress, the burdens of life, constrain us to the point of hopelessness, but when we create, we make space within which we can move.
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