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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
Comment
Alex Reszelska

In this machine age we must hold on to imperfect writing. It is not flawed. It is human

Close-up of hands writing in notebook with pen
‘The words were in me, but they were messy – misused, mispronounced. What I had, though, was observation. Curiosity. A raw need to express.’ Photograph: Ekaterina Goncharova/Getty Images

Some people are naturally drawn to writing – scribbling notes in the margins, jotting poems and little stories, mostly for themselves, sometimes to entertain others. I’ve always been one of them. Every Christmas, I asked for a new journal.

At first, they came with cute illustrations, questionnaires and only a few blank pages. Later, as my writing grew more “sophisticated”, the journals became simpler: a beautifully decorated cover, sometimes leather-bound, and clean, unlined pages that invited experiments – haiku (always about heartbreak), song lyrics, fragments of short stories, scattered observations about life.

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