― Curious George Rides a Republican (Rock Hardy), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 01:40 (nineteen years ago) link
No. I did a few years ago but now I get the urge to write about things and don't because I feel that I don't have the organizational thought capacity, the insight, the vocabulary, the elegance to say what I really want.
it's thought concretized.
Couldn't we say something nicer, like "it's thought given vitality"?
― Maria (Maria), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 01:45 (nineteen years ago) link
1) A writer has to set false conditions for themselves. No great (and this is substantively different than mere 'good') novelist / dramatist / poet ever got to where they are by simply writing when they felt like it. Self-imposed rules like '50 words / day' or '50000 words / day' or 'I must finish a chapter each month' or the simple 'write every day' are incredibly important. Since none of us feel truly inspired all the time, and most of us feel it almost none of the time, it's these artifical goals that keep us creative and unblocked.
2) Writing rituals are arbitrary and dumb. Flat-out foolish. But that doesn't mean they're untrue. I think I focus on my writing better in a public place -- but this is because I'm forced to appropriate social behavior (e.g. not getting bored with a scene and jerking off) which at home I can indulge. The important thing about these rituals [wearing a robe, writing at a certain time of day, writing to music or without] is that they augment your writing, not limit it. A stone-mason can't call in to work because he's feeling 'creatively blocked.' Neither can a good writer.
3) Writing is serious and lonely. Get used to being weird and critical and driving yourself into a funk over dumb, personal, unarticulable shit. Even more, get used to answering it yourself. I used to sleep with a girl who'd wake up in the middle of the night with, practically, a fever, to ask me shit like "do you think that the phrase 'smooth as silk' can be transmuted to 'smooth as milk' and maintain the original Asian allusion while piling on a maternal notion, or do you think that's overkill?' I'd usually roll over and go back to sleep, and I really dug this girl.
4) Kill your babies. If you notice a phrase (metaphor, paragraph, page, scene, what-have-you) as a piece of Beautiful Writing - one of those Paterian "gemlike flames" - take it out and deconstruct it. When something draws attention to itself too boldly, destroy it. As Paul Magrs told me, "sacrifice it on the alter of your future craft." The goal of a great writer, in my estimation, is to write transparently (often) and lucidly (always). To tell the story. Unless one's a poet (god bless poets) one's ALWAYS at the primary service of the story. Fancy-pants articulation and narrative filagree come with experience, not with surface manipulation.
5) "Know thy audience." -- Jack Epps, Jr. Writer of "Top Gun" "Dick Tracy" "Turner and Hooch" and "Anaconda." There's no such thing as broad-appeal. Write the story for a particular person, hopefully somebody close and optimally for one's self. Be your own worst audience, cruelest critic, and heartless editor. Don't write to genre convention; write a good human story of blood, sweat, shit, bile and semen in spite of the genre of your piece.
and a few personal observations
a) Don't write about a drug you haven't usedb) Don't write with 'tone' first in mind. It's absolutely crippling. c) Listen! I doubt anybody can give characters voices completely from the atmosphere. Your experience d) Don't write what you don't believe / like. This is an undergraduate plight. I can't tell you how many papers I grade by people who don't believe in the shit they spout. "Marx was right when he said .... " written by a blonde sorority chick from the OC who drives a Lexus with gold-tinted windows won't convince anybody. e) (or d #2) You CAN'T write what you don't believe / don't like. If you're not a cheesy person, you won't write cheesy stuff. If you don't like cornball romances, don't write one because you believe you can 'hack it.'
― Remy (null) (x Jeremy), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 02:05 (nineteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 02:09 (nineteen years ago) link
― Autumn Almanac (Autumn Almanac), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 02:11 (nineteen years ago) link
or do you think that's overkill?' I'd usually roll over and go back to sleep, and I really dug this girl. = or do you think that's overkill?" And I'd like to imagine I'd said "let's fuck instead, but ususally I'd roll over and go back to sleep, and I really dug this girl.
c) Listen! I doubt anybody can give characters voices completely from the atmosphere. Your experience = c) Listen! I doubt anybody can give characters voices completely from the atmosphere. Your experience is your greatest asset, far more so than your limited imagination.
― Remy (null) (x Jeremy), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 02:12 (nineteen years ago) link
― Autumn Almanac (Autumn Almanac), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 02:14 (nineteen years ago) link
Know a good editor/reader. Doesn't have to formally do it for a living but if you know someone who likes your work but isn't afraid to focus in on things and point them out to you, keep that person as your friend!
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 02:16 (nineteen years ago) link
― Remy (null) (x Jeremy), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 02:18 (nineteen years ago) link
I hate actually writing unless it's easy, which it usually isn't. I love having written, though, because I'm not actually writing anymore then.
― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 02:18 (nineteen years ago) link
― Autumn Almanac (Autumn Almanac), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 02:21 (nineteen years ago) link
His brother Ron has been on the news in Chicago 4-EVAH.
― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 02:24 (nineteen years ago) link
― Remy (null) (x Jeremy), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 02:29 (nineteen years ago) link
If I'm writing to be read, I don't always enjoy the process, because I tend to be rather painstaking (too much, perhaps) -- reading and rereading what I've typed, slowly tweaking -- but most of the time I like what I'm able to come up with. I impress myself a lot. And it instills a certain pride in me that I rarely get elsewhere.
― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 02:32 (nineteen years ago) link
― Remy (null) (x Jeremy), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 02:34 (nineteen years ago) link
― Autumn Almanac (Autumn Almanac), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 02:36 (nineteen years ago) link
Don't write what you don't believe / like. This is an undergraduate plight. I can't tell you how many papers I grade by people who don't believe in the shit they spout. "Marx was right when he said .... " written by a blonde sorority chick from the OC who drives a Lexus with gold-tinted windows won't convince anybody.
Um, you fucking idiot. Was Marx poor? No. Could he manage to maintain a critical distance between his own circumstance, and that of an economic theory (with social repercussions?). Yes. Oh boy, it would've been fantastic to have papoers graded by a tutor who judged you not on the strength of your ideas, but the colour of your hair..Dick. Also, Maria, be careful about taking advice from writers. It's a product, not a process. respect those who've published widely, well, and made money from it; that's what writing as a profession is.
― paulhw (paulhw), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 03:17 (nineteen years ago) link
― Remy (null) (x Jeremy), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 03:31 (nineteen years ago) link
― kyle (akmonday), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 03:32 (nineteen years ago) link
See, the funny thing is that Paul IS a professor.
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 03:35 (nineteen years ago) link
― Remy (null) (x Jeremy), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 03:36 (nineteen years ago) link
I'm not exagerrating. Many of the most important writers (academic, literary) are not somehow "representative" of those they write about. In fiction it's called imagination, and in academia, it's called research.Not bald, and I grade papers. I would fail yours, cos you're a dumb fuck.Also: didn't claim that music that's good (necessarily) sells well; but most music writing that's good is popular for a reason. Grow up kid, and accept the fact that you've got a long way to go, and few excuses for that distance...
― paulhw (paulhw), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 03:38 (nineteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 03:43 (nineteen years ago) link
― Trayce (trayce), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 03:45 (nineteen years ago) link
― Autumn Almanac (Autumn Almanac), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 03:47 (nineteen years ago) link
Basically, I have no patience.
― f--gg (gcannon), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 03:50 (nineteen years ago) link
― Curious George Rides a Republican (Rock Hardy), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 03:52 (nineteen years ago) link
― f--gg (gcannon), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 03:56 (nineteen years ago) link
― paulhw (paulhw), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 04:01 (nineteen years ago) link
― kate/baby loves headrub (papa november), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 04:15 (nineteen years ago) link
And yes, I'm being a dick. I'm actually sorry. I get like this when I suspect somebody's talking down to me. Here's why: I expect I can speak freely about my observations on writing without being called-out as - and I'm quoting you here - "a fucking idiot" for announcing a personal demon: writing on a subject on which one doesn't really have a true considered opinion. Especially given my experience, writing successes, and own personal academic shading. In proper circumstances I'll namecheck any hip culture theorist/ movement from Adorno to Zhdanovshchinan dissidence, but I don't need to trot these out to justify my positions.
Disingenious discourse (meaing writing as a strictly intellectual exercise, currently the vogue of liberal-arts educations in middle-upper class US circumstances) is pointless, masturbatory, and the entire problem with contemporary academia. Professors who require binary or dichotomic response as 'thought exercise' or 'skillbuilding' or 'to test your knowledge' should be dragged into the street and shot for condescending cruelty. In direct contrast to your experience (with talented kids who are also trying really hard (and they're not all rich!), I find that the majority of all the papers I grade are written in a way which supports uncritically (or challenges cursorily, and vaguely) the professor's presumed position. There's no heart, spark, vibrance, or true thinking in most of them - which is absolutely in polarity with the stunning (if unrefined) creative prose I read. The cases which prove me wrong - academic papers strongly written and truly smart - are ALWAYS written by somebody who has a vested, outside, and extra-academic interest in the subject matter. Thus my post: write only what you care about. Dumb blonde OC girls - and I mean this as at type with whom we're both familiar - aren't only dumb, blonde, and lexus-driving. They can be poor, righteous, and and recovering metamphetamine addicts. Point is: they're writing cold and distant jargon to appease a machine, and with no connection to their individual person. This is, as far as I'd make a moral statement: wrong.
Also: I've never claimed to be a great mind (though I doubt I'm a dumb fuck) but the thought of being graded by a man who would lambaste a stranger without personal provocation as 'dick' and 'fucking idiot' for free expression of their ideas is hardly a model of academic integrity.
― Remy (null) (x Jeremy), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 04:18 (nineteen years ago) link
― paulhw (paulhw), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 04:38 (nineteen years ago) link
I have to say, as a non-writer, Jeremy's advice seems pretty sound to me. And he writes pretty well on this thread, even though it was all he could do to activate and reactivate testicular bravery on a thread of mine the other day. In any case, my background and training is in math and science and the nature of such writing is very different from writing in other contexts-the ideal of mathematics writing is the shorter (and more impersonal) the better. In order to write about any non-mathematical topic without sounding like a third-rate sci-fi writer I've had to relieve myself of the notion that everything has to adhere to the rigorous standards of a proof and, to protect myself from problems coming from the other direction, learn to write about what's interesting to me and what I know something about, as opposed to giving a pale imitation of what I think "the (imaginary/idealized) grader" wants to hear. In any case, at the risk of appearing disingenuous, I have to admit I still can't write for much longer stretches than what it takes to fill up one of the tiny message boxes on this board- I assume such stamina comes with practice of some of the good habits mentioned on this thread.
― Ken L (Ken L), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 04:39 (nineteen years ago) link
― f--gg (gcannon), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 04:41 (nineteen years ago) link
You so did.
― Autumn Almanac (Autumn Almanac), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 04:44 (nineteen years ago) link
And Ken L: NYU? That might explain something
Have you studied here? Do you know how hard I worked to get here from a tiny town in New Zealand by now? Sorry, I wish I had a sense of homour right now, but I bet you work womewhere that I can't add an "that explains something" so easily to, right?
― paulhw (paulhw), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 04:46 (nineteen years ago) link
Hahahahaha! (I actually kinda like John McWhorter, though!)
― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 04:50 (nineteen years ago) link
― Curious George Rides a Republican (Rock Hardy), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 04:52 (nineteen years ago) link
Er.. aside from that, currently wondering why is there such hostility here. That's kind of the mood I'm in after trying to work on a piece of academic writing - I've done so much of it, and it's just killing me how much I've come to dread and hate every aspect of the entire process.
― daria g (daria g), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 05:06 (nineteen years ago) link
and you don't like LOTR so yr. advice on writing is sorta suspect.
(http://denisdutton.com/rings.htm) !!
anyway the best part about (academic) writing is turning little bits of rage and chips on shoulders into lengthy and subtle arguments so well couched, defended and constructed that yr. huge irrational chip-on-the-shoulder about a particular piece of dickery passes for established and incontrovertible fact. mad props to the smug magisterial sweep of the masters of the grand old style in rhetoric. today's neo-cons are a pathetic, defensive, and shrill imitation of the classix!
― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 05:10 (nineteen years ago) link
― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 05:13 (nineteen years ago) link
I don't know what you're trying to say, Sterling, nor how to respond.
My favorite academe source would be "Thomas H. Benton" on the Chronicle of Higher Education's website, who's written columns on "thinking about grad school in the humanities? don't go!" and "Is grad school a cult?"
― daria g (daria g), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 05:16 (nineteen years ago) link
― f--gg (gcannon), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 05:16 (nineteen years ago) link
― paulhw (paulhw), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 05:16 (nineteen years ago) link
― Ken L (Ken L), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 05:19 (nineteen years ago) link
― Remy (null) (x Jeremy), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 05:22 (nineteen years ago) link
― paulhw (paulhw), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 05:25 (nineteen years ago) link
Really, trying to find a place where there wasn't one for me, in the academic world, has messed up my life on so many levels. It's nobody's fault that at this point writing research papers makes me want to stab myself in the eye. But there's something else, something about academe qua institution, that manages to take a bunch of people who I find, personally, to be brilliant, engaging, friendly, and great company and turning them into a collective in which grad students and adjuncts are treated like shit and almost everyone is working the flat-affect day in day out, because they're just plain miserable.
― daria g (daria g), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 05:31 (nineteen years ago) link
― Remy (null) (x Jeremy), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 05:33 (nineteen years ago) link
The only way to satisfy yourself that you really know the tricks of the trade, that you understand the occult secrets, is to do it yourself. All writers start out by making imitations of works they love or admire. Once they learn how to make good imitations, they know the first elements of the craft.
When you've found the ability to tinker words into nice shapes, fitting shapes for the purposes you have in mind, then you may or may not move on to the next stage, which is to couple your craft with your life, your thoughts, your substance, the ideas that give your life meaning.
You take these ideas and you clothe them in words. The words will be the right ones for the ideas. For example, if they are ugly, brutal ideas, they will take an ugly, brutal form - and there is a kind of beauty in that. It doesn't matter what you write, so long as you write of the ideas that speak to you in the words that do them justice. Lawyers write lawyerly words. Sadists write sadistic words. Comedians write funny words.
The 'fun' of writing is in the art of it. If the art of writing doesn't grab you as worth your while to learn and master, then go carve marionettes or chop cars or whatever it is that calls forth the same love and care and fascination in you. I just happen to love words.
― Aimless (Aimless), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 05:34 (nineteen years ago) link
― Michael White (Hereward), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 20:40 (nineteen years ago) link
― 57 7th (calstars), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 20:57 (nineteen years ago) link
― Remy (null) (x Jeremy), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 21:00 (nineteen years ago) link
― 57 7th (calstars), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 21:07 (nineteen years ago) link
― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 21:27 (nineteen years ago) link
augh
― j., Friday, 12 July 2019 05:08 (four years ago) link
Writing is rewarding when you do it well, but it can only be fun if it incorporates an element of play. This sense of wordplay can and probably should come naturally, but it is often extinguished by the injection of strong ambition, competition for praise, and the imposition of editorial judgments about what is good, better or best. Someone who is under pressure to perform seldom feels that their task is full of fun.
For a shining example of writers having fun, see A thread where you commission a poem from ILE
― A is for (Aimless), Friday, 12 July 2019 18:06 (four years ago) link
Analytic writing makes me smile. It is a pleasure to compose sentences. Creative writing makes me want to impale a fork in my skull.― 57 7th (calstars), Tuesday, March 1, 2005 3:57 PM (fourteen years ago) bookmarkflaglink
otm
― flopson, Friday, 12 July 2019 18:20 (four years ago) link
Writing is least fun when you've got an audience in mind.
― pomenitul, Friday, 12 July 2019 18:23 (four years ago) link
I hear it helps if you imagine they are naked.
― A is for (Aimless), Friday, 12 July 2019 18:25 (four years ago) link
Erotica will never be my forte.
― pomenitul, Friday, 12 July 2019 18:28 (four years ago) link
Not if you write children's books
xp
― Evan, Friday, 12 July 2019 18:29 (four years ago) link
What about grotesquerie?
― A is for (Aimless), Friday, 12 July 2019 18:31 (four years ago) link
I like it when my pen makes the funny marks on the page. Oh, how it makes me laugh and sing to see the funny marks!
― Logy Psycho (Old Lunch), Friday, 12 July 2019 18:33 (four years ago) link
Then nakedness is only one eldritch state of many.
― pomenitul, Friday, 12 July 2019 18:34 (four years ago) link
Writing became more fun when I finally incorporated it into my daily routine. Once the initiatory act no longer required intentional effort and just became a thing I did regularly like eating or weeping in despair for a fallen world, I was able to forget about the more mechanical parts of the process and just, like, roll with it, baby.
― Logy Psycho (Old Lunch), Friday, 12 July 2019 18:58 (four years ago) link
(This is what makes my contributions to ILX so very, very chefkiss.jpg.)
― Logy Psycho (Old Lunch), Friday, 12 July 2019 18:59 (four years ago) link
the only good writing is posting
― A man offers an inverted bottle of water to the Techno Viking. (bizarro gazzara), Friday, 12 July 2019 19:00 (four years ago) link
Pretty much. What did people even read before message borads existed?
― Logy Psycho (Old Lunch), Friday, 12 July 2019 19:02 (four years ago) link
Shredded Wheat nutritional panel is only good for maybe 2-3 close readings and then I'm out.
― Logy Psycho (Old Lunch), Friday, 12 July 2019 19:03 (four years ago) link
Try the romance copy on the opposite panel. Real tear jerker.
― Evan, Friday, 12 July 2019 19:05 (four years ago) link
i think twitter has made me a better writer in some way. especially the 140 era (rip). not sure about ilx. my academic writing is strong relative to my peers and i take great pleasure in it; it’s a fun game to try to inject just the right amount of style while maintaining the dry tone and technical correctness
― flopson, Saturday, 13 July 2019 18:18 (four years ago) link
― Logy Psycho (Old Lunch), Friday, July 12, 2019 2:58 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink
this is probably the biggest influence of ilx, in terms of writing. reading ive aped all my styles from you guys
― flopson, Saturday, 13 July 2019 18:20 (four years ago) link
Contemporary English's (acquired, not innate) tendency towards dryness and consummate transparency drives me up the wall, although it's a useful corrective when grafted onto other, less cost-effective languages.
― pomenitul, Saturday, 13 July 2019 18:31 (four years ago) link
I like rite gud
― Ned Raggett, Saturday, 13 July 2019 20:00 (four years ago) link
“Writing is like the life of a glacier; one eternal grind” - my man John Muir
― brimstead, Sunday, 14 July 2019 22:21 (four years ago) link
Def
― calstars, Sunday, 14 July 2019 22:23 (four years ago) link
Muir's livelihood was grounded in the money he earned from his writing, mostly for periodicals. Hence, the eternal grind.
― A is for (Aimless), Monday, 15 July 2019 02:40 (four years ago) link