Open discussion about writing and reading
Sorry folks. I’m holding back a rant here. I promise to try to keep it simple though.
So often I got to a blog that I like only to read a post from a guest blogger. Don’t get me wrong, many times this person is interesting and I still read what they have to say. And sometimes I pick up their blog. But something just doesn’t sit really well with me on this guest blogger thing.
Firstly, I feel that most blogs are meant to be personal. It is the word from you. (Isn’t it?) I have a bit of a relationship with you. I read the blog because of that.
Secondly, even though I read loads of blogs, there are only so many blogs I can read. If your guest post has a better one, I might follow that one instead.
Thirdly, if I see enough guest bloggers who aren’t spot on a topic that I am interested in then I am outta there. I might be back. I might not.
Earlier this year we lost Ray Bradbury. It just so happened thought that this past weekend I came across a talk that he gave at Point Loma Nazarene University’s Writer’s Symposium by the Sea. He spoke for about ninety minutes. The time got away from me but I was quite intrigued. For one, it would seem that he was actually spending his whole time speaking extemporaneously, with no prepared speech. That did seem easy for him to do, if that was indeed what he was doing. He told stories of his long career. His stories were quite frank and quite honest and above all, they were damned interesting.
Ray Bradbury, over the course of his talk, gave the following recommendations for writers:
1) Before you sleep, read one essay, one short story and a poem;
2) Write one short story per week; and
3) Write essays often.
According to Ray this should help you to hone your overall writing skills and prepare those who are looking to be novelists at a later stage. He was pretty clear that he felt novelists should start out as short story writers. Maybe those of us who are serious should consider this advice.
If you’d like to watch Ray Bradbury’s talk yourself. Enjoy!:
I know that boat loads has been said already about grammar and punctuation going all to hell with the rise of the internet. I might as well put my two cents worth in here too…
Never in my life have I seen a language degenerate like our beloved English has not that "virtually" (pardon the pun – though none was intended) everyone is now online is some way, shape or form. Before, when virtually all of our written language was on paper, be it in print, typing or simply someone’s scribble on a piece of paper, it would be fair game to make judgments on things like punctuation and grammar. Now, it is virtually against the law to correct the laziness that is all around.
Back in the 1980′s, when rap exploded onto the scene, poor grammar and pronunciation became "okay" and even enviable. The rise of the internet – and we can’t pin this down to a generation – has made it possible to write an entire book without capitalizing any proper nouns or words at the beginning of a sentence. This is more than a tip of the hat to e.e. cummings as I would assume that 99.99% of those who are doing this haven’t the fainest idea who he is. AND THEN THERE IS THE ‘ALL CAPS’ CROWD. To me this sucks just as badly. One of my secret pet peeves is to see western Europeans who will put their family names or the name of their hometown or company in all caps. They have a huge habit of that and many haven’t the faintest clue why they do it if you ask them. If you ask me, and nobody is, I still say it is most uncalled for.
Though I don’t believe in all certainty that people who are typing this way are always poor thinkers. Many believe they are only taking shortcuts. But these short cuts are just laziness. And it leads to laziness in other things as well. The way your think. The way you double check. The way your write.
I haven’t met anyone above the age of twelve years old who hasn’t heard the old adage about first impressions. Well, why do so few people tend to care when it comes to their writing? It really beats me, to be quite honest. I also know that I seem to be in a minority here. I have mentioned this to several fellow writers and people who are just friends. Many of them think that this is one of the ways that language is simply changing. If this is the case then I want to be on record to say that this is a negative change.
If you are one of the ones who are guilty of dropping your guard on proper capitalization and punctuation then I urge you to re-think what you are doing. I dare say you are making a poor choice with your writing, your thought process and your all important public image.
A few years ago I flew from Bangkok to Dakar, Sénégal, via Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. This was pretty much in the day that you couldn’t bring an iPad along to read (they didn’t exist – remember those days?) so we were down to books, newspapers and magazines. Normally in lengthy international flights I bring a minimum of two books but this time I mistakenly packed one in my luggage. It did me no good in the belly of the plane when I finished reading the first book in the business class lounge in Addis. When we’d boarded the leg of the flight that was to stop in Bamako, Mali, prior to continuing on to Dakar I was getting pretty damned bored. The movies didn’t catch me and I was out of reading material. One of the stewardesses offered me the one remaining magazine that wasn’t passed around to the other passengers: Paris Match!
I have studied French as an autodidact off and on for years. But let me stress that this has been truly “off and on”. For the time actually put in maybe I have had a decent return on investment but in no way do I set the house in fire en français. But I liked the challenge. I occupied my mind with French for the next two hours or so then stuffed the magazine away in my bag. I do recall at being very disappointed in the amount that I did not understand. I felt like an infant.
During the week I was busy at work and so I was out of my hotel room pretty much night and day. But on the last day prior to my departure I was informed that I was bumped from my flight. I wouldn’t be leaving the next morning as planned. I didn’t feel like going out anymore so I stayed in. But instead of pulling out my second book that I brought along (people who know me know I’m not a television person) I yanked out that French magazine and tried to make another go of it. This time I felt better re-reading the magazine. Each article I read now had a context. When I put the magazine down before shutting off the light I felt better about my abilities in French.
When I finally did get back in the air, and after spending a short while in Mali and a few days in Ethiopia, I grabbed the magazine again. I thought I would use it to burn up the hours between Addis Ababa and Thailand. But a funny thing happened… I breezed through the magazine as if it were written in English! I had comprehended the longer articles with little trouble at all, and sans dictionaire, as I didn’t have one on the trip.
Language educator Stephen Krashen would have called my perusal of this French magazine as “comprehensive input” and I wouldn’t necessarily disagree on a language acquisition level. But I think that is not all that was going on either. I think the brain somehow passes over that which it already knows in order to take in something new. It is why doing something again and again is the key to mastery and expertise. But at the same time doing something again and again, if done with purpose, can actually be a shortcut. The initial struggle is part of the process so if you accept this at the outset your mind’s eye will catch the things you missed before and turn that into skill, into knowledge, and if we are lucky, eventually into wisdom.
Practically, it also means to me that I’m better off to re-read several times and re-write much less. And also that I can learn some French by myself from Paris Match!
Today I did very little of the writing I see myself doing. Instead I wrote an OpEd for my company and I wrote several pages for a company website. I somehow see this as the same even though it is different. Of course, this kind of writing could be seen as dull and boring, the “have to” stuff that puts food on the table. But I was thinking about it today and it occurred to me that while I was writing this OpEd piece and then later pages for the website that this kind of writing is actually excellent preparation for any other kind of writing. Of course, you need to be clear in what you are trying to say. You need to edit what you write both as you go along and also when you have finished.
But that’s not what I was specifically thinking about. I was thinking about something that might be even more important.
Persuasion.
Yes, if what I write in an OpEd or for a website can’t be persuasive then what good would my other writing be? If I cannot persuade a reader to think or act in everyday style, evening if it is writing a simple e-mail then it won’t come across in any book that I write.
Or any blog update that I might post for that matter.
I sometimes wonder which is better: Writing with a plan and purpose or writing aimlessly, only clarifying one’s thoughts as one goes along.
To be quite honest I do both. Sometimes alternately and sometimes at the same time.
I find that I naturally make my points much stronger when I make an outline of what I’m going to write and stick with it. When I write aimlessly I find that the product is richer and more interesting
Should I ultimately chose one style over the other?
Should I work at marrying the two styles?
I don’t think I’ll ever be able to answer those questions.
Every small progress is just that: progress
I have recently been reading Upton Sunclair’s The Jungle. I have been reading it on my Kindle app on my iPhone over lunch. Of course I am not able to do this every day because there are times that I have lunch with other people or I stay in the office to have lunch, but I have set a daily reminder at noon to read this book.
So what’s so special about this? Maybe nothing to you but to me it was a small private goal. I remember reading about this book when I was in high school and wondering why a book about working at a meat packing plant would be considered a classic in American literature but in all the reading over the past few decades I have always avoided sitting down with this book. There were always excuses or reasons to put other books ahead of it. I decided finally to put this book to rest, once and for all. So I’m doing it bit by bit and in a schedule.
I’m about to apply the same method to finishing two book projects that have been up in the air with me for some time.
It all reminds me of the old African proverb…
How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.
Last night I read an interview with Seth Godin where he said that he’d blog even if nobody else read his writing. I’ve also heard many writers claim that they write because they have to write. It is burning in them. On the other hand I as well have met and read about many writers who have to give themselves kicks to even put down the first line. I guess I’m falling into this category.
I’m interested, however in how many of you actually sit down to write and would also be interested in how you do it. Do you schedule it or do you just sit down to write when you feel inspired?
I have been very derelict in my writing for quite some time now. I have to wonder what is going on with me. So many projects in the air…
Gary Dale Cearley is an expatriate author and columnist who is based currently in Bangkok, Thailand, after having lived many years in Vietnam, Korea and many cities in the United States. He is the author of two books and was born and raised in rural Arkansas.
Gary Dale’s RSS Feed
Comments on Aux Arcs!