fumbling towards flat land (rossetti) wrote, @ 2009-10-13 13:27:00

Current mood:

dizzy

Martin's high standard and my selfishness
“To idealize: all writing is a campaign against cliché. Not just clichés of the pen but clichés of the mind and clichés of the heart.”
- Martin Amis

We’re trying, Martin. Not always successfully, but we’re trying.

Last month, Little China Girl and I attended a three-day writing workshop called City Fiction. Let me just say, that group rawked harder than Van Halen. Well, maybe not harder, but darned close. Our workshop facilitator was eloquent and generous and our shopmates were interested and interesting.

For a final assignment, we were asked to write three postcard-size snippets of fiction set in, of course, the city. I could only scrounge up two, and it was a painful birthing process too, considering put together my pieces didn’t even cover one whole page.

Anyway, while we were critiquing the pieces, one shopmate seemed to me to have gotten completely lost reading my second piece. He kept throwing his hands up in the air and asking, “What is that for? What does it mean?” It was a disconcerting reminder of a skill I have obviously not yet mastered: the ability to write for other people.

I can’t do it.

In high school, our English teacher asked no one in particular who we write for when we write. Without thinking, I piped up that I write for myself. Also instinctively, a classmate said, “Well that’s selfish.” I hadn’t thought of it as selfishness until someone pointed it out. It was just the only way I knew how to do it. Even when I am required to write, as with the writing workshop, I can’t think to write for whoever is asking me to do so or whoever will read the piece. I don’t know why. Nobody taught me how. Or is that supposed to come naturally?

(Anonymous) 2009-10-19 09:10 (link)

All writers are selfish. Once they write for someone else they begin pandering to what sells. Go with what you know is true with yourself and you'll find many universal truths that will touch many people. You don't have to give and give. But people are free to take as much as they can. And what they usually take is as much true to themselves as to yours. Be selfish. And proud. (Reply to this) (Thread)

rossetti 2009-10-26 22:06 (link)

See, I recently started going to Mass again. So I am some mutation of a practicing Catholic, I think. And, while I appreciate your thoughts on my selfishness, your last two sentences? My favorite priest would count those as sins. Yeah, I'm using the "S" word again. (see blog entry above) But yeah, I'm working on being comfortable with the fact that I can't write for other people. Kind of like developing a taste for ampalaya. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

(Anonymous) 2009-10-27 18:21 (link)

you should have whacked that 'shopmate' in the head for terrorizing literature. we should stop treating every non-journalistic piece like a caught covert operative: hauled into a dimly-lit room, shoved onto a chair, wrists and feet tied, and being demanded to answer: what's your meaning? what's your purpose? when kafka wrote his stories, he did not think about what your 'shopmate' will say 60, 70 years on. when hemingway said, 'less is more', he did not care about criticisms then and most especially now. the duty of a responsible, educated reader is to guess the writer's intent and motivation. it's not the writer who must explain himself. therein lies the beauty of the written word (among others): the guessing game, the mystery that might never be solved, and the truth you put in between. (Reply to this) (Thread)