Can one be sheepishly opinionated?
May. 14th, 2007 09:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI was reading old metafandom stuff and someone in passing mentioned some famous writer dude answering a request for advice about writing. He said something like "Don't do it. If you need advice, don't do it." Because writing should be something that burns and has to get out and... I don't know, that whole inspiration thing.
I been thinking about it, and my thought is: Bollocks.
That to me reads like the advice of someone who already has the toolkit, the platform, the confidence, the voice, and thinks somehow those things sprang full grown from his own head.
Which is never, ever, so.
I mean for a start people have to learn language, and really that's a process that doesn't end. And then people find ways other people use language, the norms and conventions and suchlike. And then people find a thing that they really need to talk about. Maybe it's a thing a billion people talk about, maybe it's a thing nobody else is talking about. Either way, the next thing they have to do is the writerly equivalent of opening their mouth and making noise and having everyone look at them.
... y'all may have noticed I have issues with that part.
So maybe some writers start talking to themselves, and other writers have a set of life experiences that tells them of course they're entitled to speak up, and other writers have been through stuff that leaves them all fired up and ready to ignore the consequences, or needing to make consequences, or...
There's a lot of 'or' in there. A lot of different ways. And those ways aren't the half of them.
The thing is as soon as there's a reader all that stuff happens as part of a community. It's a conversation, even if it's a really slow one where you only get three words of feedback on a ten thousand words story (er, sorry). Or if you don't even get that you just get other texts being made that may or may not be responding to your text and have to absorb or discard or react or ignore or whatever.
So being a writer... it's like being people, you bounce off other people all the time and that tells you if you're being people okay, sort of thing. Or just that you are being - no feedback, no proof of existence! And even if you decide to do different than other people then you've got people as what to be different from.
So *of course* writers need advice. Of course whatever dude was saying it takes advice. It's just the one asking the question does so consciously and the other dude seems to be ignoring this process.
I'm responding to a half remembered out of context quote I can't even remember where I read, but I'm also not. Because the thing is... I just have this really major reaction to advice that adds up to "don't talk. don't have a voice." And it took a while to get written. Because, you know, sometimes I make words, and sometimes not so much.
But it seems to me that there's always going to be people who have their opinions really loud and despite what other people say, and then again there's going to be people that have their ideas real quiet and need a bit of encouragement to ever get them written down. And who's to say the quiet people don't have stories that are at least as amazing as the loud ones?
Some stories spring into the world announcing themselves grandly. Other stories need some coaxing, a nice quiet room, maybe some sweets to lure them out. Say all the stories have to be the springy kind and you end up with much less stories. As a reader, that would suck.
Now there's another time I heard someone's reply be "Don't do it. If you can be anything else, don't do it." And that was an actor I like, talking about being an actor.
So for him I wish to find a set of motives that makes it make sense :-)
I think with acting, like with a lot of creative stuff, if you go into it wanting to be a famous actor or a print-published writer or, if you're really insanely optimistic, rich... you're just so unlikely to get those goals you're not going to get much out of it. But if it's the process that enthralls you, if you are in it to act or to write, then you'll be okay. So if it's what you do, then do it. But if what you do is something else, go be good at that.
... but having considered this carefully and looked around fandom, I reckon "don't do it" isn't the right advice even then. Because around here we do tons of things, we do studying and looking after people and having day jobs in wild variety, but we also do writing in assorted forms. And I know people who do acting, not for a living, just because they want to. So I think maybe that idea of 'being an actor' is a bit misleading.
Be people, using tools of acting, writing, music, art, whatever else.
Always do it. Life more interesting that way.
Just don't get too attached to getting any particular return from it.
I been thinking about it, and my thought is: Bollocks.
That to me reads like the advice of someone who already has the toolkit, the platform, the confidence, the voice, and thinks somehow those things sprang full grown from his own head.
Which is never, ever, so.
I mean for a start people have to learn language, and really that's a process that doesn't end. And then people find ways other people use language, the norms and conventions and suchlike. And then people find a thing that they really need to talk about. Maybe it's a thing a billion people talk about, maybe it's a thing nobody else is talking about. Either way, the next thing they have to do is the writerly equivalent of opening their mouth and making noise and having everyone look at them.
... y'all may have noticed I have issues with that part.
So maybe some writers start talking to themselves, and other writers have a set of life experiences that tells them of course they're entitled to speak up, and other writers have been through stuff that leaves them all fired up and ready to ignore the consequences, or needing to make consequences, or...
There's a lot of 'or' in there. A lot of different ways. And those ways aren't the half of them.
The thing is as soon as there's a reader all that stuff happens as part of a community. It's a conversation, even if it's a really slow one where you only get three words of feedback on a ten thousand words story (er, sorry). Or if you don't even get that you just get other texts being made that may or may not be responding to your text and have to absorb or discard or react or ignore or whatever.
So being a writer... it's like being people, you bounce off other people all the time and that tells you if you're being people okay, sort of thing. Or just that you are being - no feedback, no proof of existence! And even if you decide to do different than other people then you've got people as what to be different from.
So *of course* writers need advice. Of course whatever dude was saying it takes advice. It's just the one asking the question does so consciously and the other dude seems to be ignoring this process.
I'm responding to a half remembered out of context quote I can't even remember where I read, but I'm also not. Because the thing is... I just have this really major reaction to advice that adds up to "don't talk. don't have a voice." And it took a while to get written. Because, you know, sometimes I make words, and sometimes not so much.
But it seems to me that there's always going to be people who have their opinions really loud and despite what other people say, and then again there's going to be people that have their ideas real quiet and need a bit of encouragement to ever get them written down. And who's to say the quiet people don't have stories that are at least as amazing as the loud ones?
Some stories spring into the world announcing themselves grandly. Other stories need some coaxing, a nice quiet room, maybe some sweets to lure them out. Say all the stories have to be the springy kind and you end up with much less stories. As a reader, that would suck.
Now there's another time I heard someone's reply be "Don't do it. If you can be anything else, don't do it." And that was an actor I like, talking about being an actor.
So for him I wish to find a set of motives that makes it make sense :-)
I think with acting, like with a lot of creative stuff, if you go into it wanting to be a famous actor or a print-published writer or, if you're really insanely optimistic, rich... you're just so unlikely to get those goals you're not going to get much out of it. But if it's the process that enthralls you, if you are in it to act or to write, then you'll be okay. So if it's what you do, then do it. But if what you do is something else, go be good at that.
... but having considered this carefully and looked around fandom, I reckon "don't do it" isn't the right advice even then. Because around here we do tons of things, we do studying and looking after people and having day jobs in wild variety, but we also do writing in assorted forms. And I know people who do acting, not for a living, just because they want to. So I think maybe that idea of 'being an actor' is a bit misleading.
Be people, using tools of acting, writing, music, art, whatever else.
Always do it. Life more interesting that way.
Just don't get too attached to getting any particular return from it.
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no subject
Date: 2007-05-14 09:09 pm (UTC)I love what you've said in response to Rilke's sentiment, however. I've often questioned whether I can consider myself a "real" writer because I don't feel that constant, burning need to write that seems to come with the territory. The way you've explored the idea makes me think maybe I shouldn't worry about it so much.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-15 10:10 am (UTC)Maybe it happens a lot.
and cool :-)