When are you an interesting writer?

luka

luka

Well-known member
They had a moment that lot. They discovered the territory and it's inhabitants. Dont understand what that nummogram is supposed to be about but I've never really had a head for that sort of thing.
 
craner

craner

Beast of Burden
I'm not shy at all when writing things in public, and yet in real life I am a bit shy and reserved.
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
craner said:
I was about to get offended, but one of the reasons I carry on writing things is that I am a chaotic and instinctive thinker, so I usually have to think through writing. It clarifies what I'm trying to think, rather than what I'm trying to say. Of course, I also just enjoy playing around with words and sentences, I find it's a bit like doing a painting.
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Yeah you're not a New Yorker magazine
 
shiels

shiels

_
craner said:
I was about to get offended, but one of the reasons I carry on writing things is that I am a chaotic and instinctive thinker, so I usually have to think through writing. It clarifies what I'm trying to think, rather than what I'm trying to say. Of course, I also just enjoy playing around with words and sentences, I find it's a bit like doing a painting.
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Yes and you can write to say what you're embarrassed to think more confidently.
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
shiels said:
Is language the split that creates an outside?
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I really don't know. I don't understand it. I just know that things enter the field that weren't there before. We need to work it out. By the time this thread peters out we'll have the secret in our hands
 
shiels

shiels

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luka said:
The last real thing I wrote, which is amazing, I wrote because I was under psychic attack and I needed to fight back. It was a desperate last ditch attempt made out of compulsion. The thing before that was an attempt to write about a bad trip. The thing before that just turned everything into itself a whole new way of writing, just poured out, possessed me.
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I'd like to read these if you share them
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
Sometimes you might find something that appears to be yours, uncovering something that belongs to you.

Other times you find voices that seem to clearly belong to other people, alive or dead.

Or voices which belong to spirits. The little people perhaps, or the the Instructors.

There's all sorts of stuff out there in the aether. It's not homogenous.
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
shiels said:
I'd like to read these if you share them
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They're too long to post here. And anyway Beagle might say something mean about them and destroy my confidence.

There's this audio version of the first book I did

 
shiels

shiels

_
I suppose it gets really interesting when you can build the system that exists beyond you and swims off into the world animating other people, and making buildings and starting wars. Is that what's interesting, what it changes?
 
Corpsey

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
It's not that different from being an interesting speaker/conversationalist IMO

Most people can't write like they speak though cos they think writing is something different and special and they have to affect a certain tone.

I've realised this working as a copywriter, proofreading stuff by people who are very clever but have absolutely no idea how to write.

It also means thinking about who you're talking to. The temptation when writing is often to be as clever as possible, to fart around with words etc. But imagine if someone you were talking to did that. You'd want to slap them. Or you'd just walk off.
 
shiels

shiels

_
I agree with all that for writing copy. People sit down at a keyboard like they're wearing a 3 piece suit. First rule is nobody gives a fuck, second rule is if you wouldn't say it don't write it.

People can retreat to technicality and formality and the obscure when they're insecure.
 
Corpsey

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
That's true.

"Write drunk, edit sober" said Hemingway.

I'm afflicted (when sober) with a compulsion to qualify everything I write, to apologise in advance, to hold my hands up and say "well I might be wrong, just so you know - I KNOW!"
 
shiels

shiels

_
I look forward a time when I've posted and read enough that I can start telling you all what I don't like about you.
 
S

sadmanbarty

Well-known member
qualification when talking about anything aesthetic is a huge no no. never do it.

everything has to be the greatest thing that ever happened or worse than the holocaust. nothing inbetween
 
Corpsey

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
sadmanbarty said:
qualification when talking about anything aesthetic is a huge no no. never do it.

everything has to be the greatest thing that ever happened or worse than the holocaust. nothing inbetween
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This is the Pound approach to criticism. Bold, easily exploded arguments. Thrilling to read. Probably don't stand up to too much examination.

The Eliot approach is closer (though much superior, natch) to that other approach. Almost raising criticism to the level of science (or lowering it, depending on your POV).

That's criticism though—when it comes to MAKING art I think you have to be bold, be a fundamentalist. Otherwise you'll never get around to it. You'll be Hamlet, failing to shank your father's murderer.
 
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