Nov 21 2008
350 Edited Words
Here’s the final version of the original “off the top of my head free writing” chunk. I really should have kept this consecutive with the longer one, but so it goes.
“Why do so many unqualified people want to be writers? Words are all around us; they’re what we use every day, so it’s easy to think that there’s nothing special about them. If you can speak, you can write; for too many wannabes, daily conversation seems no different from what a writer produces and what ultimately shows up on the pages of books and magazines.
“It’s a very different thing, though, a different world, one you enter either prepared or unprepared. If you start out unprepared, and refuse to change that, you’ll eventually be cast out, whether rudely or politely doesn’t matter, except in how it affects your understanding. Too polite a rejection teaches nothing. It allows the incompetent to believe that if they just keep trying, the doors will open and they’ll be admitted to the inner sanctum and to what they mistakenly believe is an endless flow of money and adulation.
“If one of these aspiring writers looked at what I produced in a 15 minute writing exercise, they might be impressed, even awed. How can someone produce so many words in such a short time? And where do the ideas come from? They have no conception of what goes into becoming a writer, even one who’s just adequate. Even so, they’re convinced they can do it.
“At the opposite pole are those who think that they need to take courses, be instructed how to write. The great writers of the past would laugh at the idea, and so would most contemporary writers; their teachers were the writers of previous generations and those of their own generation worthy of their admiration. They might emulate those writers in the early part of the learning process, but mainly, they spend many years reading and absorbing the language and its uses.
“Reading is the foundation, the core. Without that foundation, it’s impossible to become a writer. The would-be writer who doesn’t read, who hasn’t been reading most of his life, is an empty shell, and all he will produce is the trite shorthand that makes up most of our everyday communication.”
2 Responses to “350 Edited Words”
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THIS ARTICLE MAKES ME FEEL LOADS BETTER! I’M CURRENTLY WRITING A NOVEL AND AFTER READING SEVERAL BOOKS ON PUBLISHING AND WRITING NOVELS I WAS GETTING PRETTY DISCOURAGED AT EVEN TRYING TO DO THIS PROJECT!
IT’S ALL PART OF MY BUCKET LIST. AFTER WATCHING THE MOVIE I MADE A LIST OF THINGS THAT I’VE ALWAYS WANTED TO DO ALL MY LIFE. I’VE DONE MOST OF THEM THIS YEAR. I PLAN TO WRITE ABOUT IT WHEN IT’S COMPLETED AND THE FUN I HAD REACHING MY MINI GOALS
Glad to have given you a little boost. A novel is a huge project, and the most interesting part of doing it might be the writing about how you did it, plus your other goals.