Another Comment Re: Jeff's Blog
Jeff,Well, I guess this feature is working again.
First of all I love the story, especially the line early on about a tongue too big for the mouth. I wish I had written that!
I continue to be amazed with your attention for detail. I wish I had the level of talent that you display when I was your age. Perhaps I would not have wasted so much time writing 20,000 pages of drivel that I eventually threw away.
Which brings me to comment on your insights concerning writing and being a writer. You are exactly on target with how I perceive things. I will say that I have always held the suspicion that there are a great many of the society that have 'the bug' but do not choose writing as a vent for the pent-up pressure.
Maybe society can be divided into the have and have-nots in more than just an economic sense. I would agree with your assertion that a writer is an artist. I would even go so far as to say that the world is pretty-much split in the manner of expression of their individuality. It could even be further broken down into those who create or nurture and those that destroy or denigrate. There would be a buffer between that consists of those who do little but exist or even subsist and perhaps there is a continuum of variation in degree even among this fairly large group.
I think there are a good many that have 'the bug' that turn to alcohol or drugs. Their penchant for seeing and even pointing out what is not always obvious to others is the source of ridicule, rejection and derision. I think it is for them, those that are still able to change the course of their lives that some of us that write may want to serve as inspiration. I have been inspired in many ways but I am most inspired by anyone with the artistic 'bug' that defies conventional wisdom and the naysayer element to succeed.
I know that you understand the concepts of Richard Fenton's somewhat simplistic approach to positive thinking in business and sales. I really believe his model is generally correct, that failure and rejection is a way station on the path to success. I also believe as he seems to that those who are the most successful have not yet decided that they have arrived at their destination. The successful never quit succeeding or taking risks.
A writer takes risks every time he or she writes. It is the risk of exposing some guarded secret or some privately acknowledge foible. A writer differs from the masses in that he or she has a compulsion to reveal the qualities of character as well as the darkest parts of human nature that each of us would just as leave forget. We deal with the human condition in what we write, and deal with it daily in a deeply personal way, because we see it through our perception. What makes a writer different is the odd way of seeing things and the innate ability to translate observation into common language that hopefully others will understand and appreciate.
This is what I wanted to say about your post. I'm kind of glad that this feature was disabled yesterday because it gave me another day to put a little more thought into my comments.
E
posted by Unknown @ 7:33 AM
1 Comments:
Elgon,
Thanks for the compliments. You say you wish you had displayed such talent at my age, hypothesizing that you would not have produced a volume of material worth purging. Let me remind you that I said, "Not everything a writer writes is great..." Well, this is definitely true for me. I think the difference between you and me is that I discard my drivel in a constant stream, rather than saving it up for a couple of decades.
Of course, this isn't necessrily a good thing. I would have loved to leaf through that garbage pile of 20,000 or so pages. I am sure there was something in there. A pearl in pig poop, as you say. I am sure some of the things I have discarded might have been the beginning of something greater, if I had just had the patience to rework it.
In most other areas of my life, I am a packrat, storing away odds and ends of uselessness, though I don't know why. When that great hibernation at the end finally comes, none of that junk will do me any good. Neither will the writing, come to think of it, but if my work becomes an object of continuing public interest then I will have attained a certain level of immortality, so they say.
For a writer I don't think there is too much lamentation over lost material, even if it is good. We spend too much time focusing on what we're creating now to worry about what we've created in the past. Though we may feel the twinge of regret, to dwell on it would be a crime to the unborn brood conceived in the womb beneath the brow.
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