So many issues

Yesterday while I was in Panera working on the setup of this page and my other blog (blogs, actually, since there is a not quite mirror of this one there) at Wordpress.com, I started thinking about the many facets of the writing process. To name a few, there are:

1. creative or free-writing
   
2. editing
3. researching
4. editing again
5. stewing
6. ditching it all
7. starting over again

Okay, so No.6 really isn't necessarily a step in the process. And there really should be a second "researching" step as well as at least one more editing or rewriting step in the list. But the point is that writing is seldom as simple as jotting down thoughts and sharing them with the world. (Even if that is what most people, including me, do.)

But there are also the deeper things about writing. Thing like the way writing can alter one. Writing a good piece of erotica can stimulate one's libido. Writing scenes of death and futility can have me in a funk for days. And happy endings just inspire me to keep writing well past the end of the story, because I'm so in love with the piece in question, I don't want that end to happen.

Then there is the research aspect. Take for example this piece about Feminism and Pornography that my husband sent me to look at. For a long time my attitude toward porn had been shifting with the tides, mostly depending on the type qnd quality of the product involved. But in reading this piece (really three smaller pieces one after another), I was tossed back and forth emotionally. Really, there seems to be no decent place to land on in this issue. I see the good, the bad, the ugly... And of course, there are many points on the continuum that could be explored. I'm always left with the same problem. It's not the object, it's how we use it. Is the knife a kitchen tool or a weapon of violence? Decide for yourself. Here are a few links to get you started:

1. Wikipedia Virtue Ethics
2. Ethical Realism

Have a great day!