A Writer's Notebook, Day Six-Hundred-And-Fifty

One of the things that I often find when talking with other writers about craft is a sense of boundaries and walls that cannot be crossed.  I will hear writers discuss craft as if what they see in the work they read and have been shown are the only way things can be.

In many ways, I feel the same thing is present for many people in this country right now.  I know that their are some who openly cannot fathom the idea that anything is wrong, and that is delusional, but I also see that their are people who have only ever seen one way for things to be, one way they have ever been done.

When I talk to writers and suggest the possibility that what they have learned is only one way to do things, I used to expect that they might not see how to do it, but I was never saying that things could not be done as they always had, just that other possibilities might exist; why should that cause animus?  But it often does, because people do not want to have their belief systems disrupted.  If I am right, they may not know how to function.  It is safer to stay in their limited perspective.

Now, in writing, that is probably fine, albeit limiting, but to discuss the issues facing the United States requires recognizing the danger inherent in systems built to perpetuate one perspective on society, and those cannot change without also addressing the assumptions about our world that all of us carry.  It is a holistic problem, existing on many levels at once, and we cannot address it without doing so in that same holistic way, meaning that it must be exanined and addressed at both personal and societal levels.  Neither one is a full solution

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Writer's Notebook, Day Two-Hundred-And-Fifty

Each of the three pieces I wrote today was a bit of a struggle to get going, if I am honest.  That happens, as I have mentioned, and my answer is generally to just wait it out, and the results vary.  A lot of the time, if I am really stuck, I might try to force something out, often it winds up being a bit meta, with me writing about being stuck without much in terms of inspiration, and it feels a bit like I am working scales in a way.  All the aesthetic decisions are there, they just don't always have a lot of purpose behind them, and that is fine in that context.  Essentially, I am just forcing myself to do the work, and getting it done, and I am showing myself that I can and will do it even if inspiration never strikes.  This can often take pressure off, and that lack of pressure opens up creative thinking and inspiration. Now, that is a fine thing for me to do, and I am likely to use that approach again many times in the future, but today I felt that I want...
Read more

Le Guin, Steering The Craft, Chapter Five: Adjectives and Adverbs (Exercise Five, Chastity)

A note of apology for my lateness with this.  I had expected to have time earlier in the day, but it was not to be, alas.  Anyhow, I am still a bit nervous about this exercise, though it is clearly of significant import to Le Guin, as she points out that it is the only exercise that she has given to all of her workshops.  That, of course, does not alter my feelings about it, excepting that I am aware of it as something valuable and worth doing, so the fact that it is a bit daunting might well be seen, through that light, as a promise of reward, perhaps.  The more difficult the task, the more one has to gain, at least by some logic... Exercise Five: Chastity Mr. Torino was in charge.  He had his way.  It was the way.  Desktops are clean.  Nothing but work.  No pictures: not your kids; not your girl or wife; not (as Allen recounted) your car.   None of that.  No plants.  No cartoons.  That is for home, this is work....
Read more

A Writer's Notebook, Two-Thousand-And-Fifty-Nine

I have been thinking about how I can discuss certain aspects of my poetry and the choices I make as a writer.  In particular, I tend to write without as much reliance on sensory details and descriptions, instead choosing more abstract depictions.  This is something that I know many writers would call an odd choice, as specificity seems inherently to demand the application of detail, but I tend to be a bit hesitant about relying on depictions that utilize the senses, as I find that approach somewhat problematic.  For one thing, sensory description is always going to be less than universal, and not only because of the reality that there are individuals who lack one or more sense.  In many ways, for me, the deeper problem is one related to language itself.  Our use of language creates our experiences in a very real way, though I can't necessarily offer a full explanation of what I mean by that right here, but using a word for an object bestows qualities on it....
Read more