Writing (Not) from Self

   I remember years ago, I had read somewhere the idea that we should "write what we know". In fact, that was one of the main principles I had learned in Writer's Craft class, and I think it has always been a caution against writers who try to envision their characters in some far-off place, such as an historic moment to which they were not a part. "Write what you know" is almost like Albert Camus' notion of 'fidelity to one's limits': be true to what you have truly learned and digested, rather than trying to overextend your reach. But now I wonder, what does it really mean? And if I only write what I ''think I know" how is that getting anywhere outside the comfort of my own home?
   One of the scary things (perhaps) about free writing practice is that it can take a person to somewhere that is not familiar to her or him. Like meditation, writing just without using discursive thinking is a way of discovery and process. It is that empty space, I guess, where all my experiences start to distill, including what I have seen and heard in the past. The interesting thing about it is that I am never limited to who I think the 'self'' is, especially the self that I present to the world to function or survive. Instead, writing can invite a person not to necessarily write from a center at all, but to consider all characters or situations as a totality. I think this is akin to a Silent Illumination meditative practice as applied to writing. Here, I am not favoring one character, or one situation, or even trying to make some characters have a happy ending. Instead, my position as a writer becomes a little bit like floating between the spaces of different characters and beholding them equally in each of their uniqueness. In meditative practice, one can sometimes reach a state where even seemingly 'familiar' things start to lose their familiarity, and can be written from other stances. Think, for example, about how a soft and cute kitten might appear to a mouse. In that instance, the kitten starts to look fierce and aggressive. Then pan back to the kitten in your lap. Different perspectives create very different scenes and situations.
     Another principle of free writing is to allow the characters to be the channels through which a person writes a story. This is hard for writers to do, because it might sometimes seem like relinquishing one's ability or power to that of a character. Of course, some would argue that the character is really just an extension of one's self. It's true, but in another way, each character that comes up is a surprise. It's surprising what each character tells a writer about her or himself, as well as the kinds of discoveries that are latent in that process. Sometimes, I even think of it as allowing my strong sense of self to take a side-step, to allow other voices to channel through my fingers.
    Another point of writing from 'non-self' is perhaps the idea of letting go. If I am writing and I stumble upon a character or sentence I really like, the instruction on free writing is to just keep writing. Don't attach to 'this one was good' or 'I really liked that sentence', in other words. I think this practice is a way of not identifying too much with writing. In the end, words are also just vehicles that help me to convey a message. They too have no meaning except in the context of being read in a particular time or place. For that reason, it would be foolish if I over-identified with any of my thoughts or writing. Perhaps the principle is that all writing is an effort to convey an existence that cannot be fully conveyed. And language is just a way of dancing around the spaces where people live. It combines and recombines in fanciful ways, but the forms don't quite capture the full range of possibility. In that way, a person can write from a place of not overly attaching to anything that is written or read.