The quiz* reports I should “Stop writing now before it is
too late to turn back.” Good to know.
Here are some reasons why I’m not a “born writer”...
• I don’t rewrite commercials,
movie endings, of television shows while watching them.
First, there is the honest fact that I don’t
write endings anyway. Ask any person who has tried to edit me.
Second, the very idea sounds like a
profound waste of time. Rewriting commercials?
Third—and most likely to lose me friends—“’shipping”
is a stupid way to read.
• I didn’t
decide to become a writer in my early teens. My life and my brain just weren't that organized.
• I don’t especially love
the feel of a keyboard or a pen. I’m a very tactile person. I like touching my
physical environment. Both typing and writing with a pen tend to be dull,
repetitive experiences. I like writing with a brush, a sharp stick, or a dipped
nib much better as far as tactile sensations go. They are not so useful when it
comes to submitting novels to editors, however.
• I don’t find
quotes about writers and writing especially compelling, although I do find a
certain aphoristic sort of quote enjoyable...
“Nationalism is
an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.” –Einstein
“The more you
learn about the dignity of the gorilla, the more you want to avoid people.”
–Fossey
• • I can’t blame my bouts of crankiness on
lacking time to write. I am frequently cranky for a multitude of reasons. And as far as
the idea that “creative juices...not released...fester and create moodiness and
anger” goes, I have a multitude of ways to create. I am constantly McGyvering
the world. It’s what I do.
• • Being a writer
isn’t my fantasy job. The more I think about this, the less sense it makes to
me. For one thing, I had different, unattainable childhood aspirations:
astronaut, cowboy, Thor Heyerdahl. For another, I know enough writers to know
that their lives are distinctly their own, as original as their books.
• • I don’t find
writers’ biographies and memoirs more interesting than those of other sorts of
people. Personally, I like to read books about explorers and inventors and
criminal lunatics. There is some overlap with “writers”—I’ll grant that.
• • I don’t wish I was watching a movie based on a
book I’d written. I think film and books are very different ways of telling
stories. Some of my favorite books defy being made into film because the
language--the way sentences are made and words sound--resists being translated
into scenes. If I wanted to tell a story in film, I’d learn how to write a
screenplay and learn the grammar of cinematography.
• • Having lived
as myself for my whole life; I’ve had many opportunities to notice that the
lives of others aren’t mine. I’ve met many intelligent or diligent people who
haven’t been successful. Or maybe they were, by their own measures, which are
the only measures that matter.
- - -
* Okay, we all
know these quizzes are a waste of time, but bear with me. I do think this promulgates
a number of wrongheaded ideas.
And I have no idea why blogger inserted extra bullet points. I probably told it to, but ?
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