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A friend once said -
I think one of the hard things is finding what one CAN write about. That's our strength, what we can write about. But it's hard to find our strengths, easy to find our weaknesses. I think we like to keep our strengths covered up, otherwise they accuse us of being unused. Because it's one thing to know our strengths, but it takes real courage to use them.
Without contesting what has been said, can we look into what we CAN write?
I shall give my answer after a few replies.
My greatest strength....my imagination of thinking of things that no one else thinks of...
IMAGINE
The big question should be what do people want to read. The Romantic myth of writing as a personal exercise ignores the reality that art has an implied artist most of the time. Programmed without that tradition, literature loses its appeal.
Once you realize literature becomes a performance, it begins to make sense. The American confessional tradition that took over during and after the Beat generation basically cut itself off from community outside itself.
Just an aside first. I have not seen that little gem from dear old Oscar before, brilliant:
It's incredible, I'm sure he keeps on writing even after his death!Quote:
“It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it.”
― Oscar Wilde
Anyway, should be question not be about how something is written as opposed to what? Other than that I don't really understand the question sorry.
The stuff of nightmares.
Explorations into the dark psyche is the area of which I am most comfortable, the morbid and the macabre. One of the things of which I enjoy doing the most is altering ones perception of something.
About the world around you, about the world inside you, about the world that does not exist - anything except vampires.....don't.
I think JBI's post is very poignant, at least if your aim in writing is to write to be published. There are those who write purely for themselves and in that case, screw what the rest of the world wants. But yes, if you are writing in order to share your work (as most do) then consider what it is the world wants....except vampires.
Don't blame the vampires just because certain individuals have besmirched their reputation and misrepresented them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Charles Darnay
I had a feeling you'd come at me for that.
True, vampires are not to blame for the onslaught of terrible vampire lit, but I think we need to let them rest for a while.
Ha, ha was that an intentional joke?Quote:
Originally Posted by Charles Darnay
JBI's right - if you want to write for a career. The odd writer will create a market with an idea that is either original or which taps into some trend. But it's mainly about what people want to read. If you wanted to write sci fi, then look at what sells. if it's children's literature, then look at what is on the shelves for the various age groups. It's no mystery - if you want to be able to write and sustain your writing, you have to make money to continue. Once you get into a different career, then it's very difficult.
By the way - a good vampire book is Fevre Dream by George RR Martin.
A good idea only I read that to follow what is in fashion in the publishing world means that you are already one step behind, as by the time you have written it it is then out of fashion. Anyway, there is virtually zero chance of getting published and making any money out of writing, certainly for the unpublished writer, so there is little point in considering such things outside of pure speculation. I also wonder if the OP was just taking in general about things to write about, not necessarily writing to publish, I don't know?Quote:
Originally Posted by Paulclem
Not only to sell. To be read. Some authors and artists create only for themselves. Therefore they can be dismissed. Even authors who do not want money but merely want recognition must realize art is not an onanistic behavior.Quote:
Originally Posted by Paulclem
I'm partial to Brian Lumley's Wamphyri from his Necroscope series. They're huge, powerful, violent, and totally evil. On their homeworld, they live in aeries on huge cliffs and have a society of sorts, with self-serving alliances and rivalries. In their homes, each is served by vampire lieutenants, human slaves, and assorted creatures, grown from vampire flesh in vats, that serve more specific purposes (flying steeds, war beasts, etc.) Needless to say, this is about as far from Twilight as you can get.Quote:
Originally Posted by Paulclem
As too many authors do, Lumley beat his good ideas into the ground with too many books, but the initial five-book Necroscope series and the initial follow-up Vampire World trilogy are some of the highest quality modern pulp you'll find.
I want to read something that sheds light on the human experience. That's what is important to me and, in my opinion, the only thing really worth writing about.
One problem that I struggle with is just how much of my life to share. There are many things I don't want to write about but I was taught to "write what I know" and I believe this is the correct approach. Otherwise, the writing seems false.
JBI, I agree that the real question is what people want to read. I'm also intrigued by the rest of your statement and still trying to understand what you meant. Do you mean a performance or implied artist in the sense of something like Oedipus or the oral tradition of poetry?Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
I also don't understand what you meant by the confessional tradition used by the Beats. How did they cut themselves off from the community outside themselves? Surely works such as On The Road have had a major impact on modern literature. And where would we be without writers such as Henry Miller, William S Burroughs, or even Bukowski?
It seems to me that this is exactly the kind of thing a modern reader wants to read. Of course literature has changed. Hardly anyone wants to read Chaucer or even Milton or John Donne, etc. anymore. I still enjoy reading 19th century novels but personally, the only poetry I can stand to read is modern poetry. Sure, I studied the classics in school but I feel that literature evolves just as painting has evolved and changed.
I'm sure there was a major reaction to and harsh criticism of movements such as the Impressionists, Post-Impressionism, the Postmodern movement, etc. Surely you are not saying that we must stick to the classics? Just trying to understand what you meant.
If you got an imagination you can write about anything. Provided your vocabulary is up to par. Any and all learning of the world around means squat without a good sense of anything is possible.
I think the stuff I write is crap. It's in there waiting to come out but making sense of it? Well that's a whole different ballgame....
I mostly agree with JBI, but not entirely. I do think that writers should write for themselves, but they should still try to create something that people would actually be interested in if they want to be read.
The best advice I've ever heard, and I don't remember the source, is to "Write the book that you want to read." I guess that's all you really can do, though.
It's important to keep audience in mind, but pandering is always a bad idea...And you can never really know what anyone wants to read. There's an audience for everything - every weird, mundane, twisted, or otherwise thing that you could possibly imagine.
Crap? Um, I disagree. Of course that's for you to decide. I am the reader of your poetics and you are the dispenser. It matters only that the reader gets joy from one's works and not the writer. For all artists tend to doubt their own genius.Quote:
Originally Posted by Delta40
:yikes: Maybe for technical writers, or people who write to order, perhaps.Quote:
Originally Posted by ShadowsCool
I think Delta enjoys writing, or she wouldn't be. She's just being humble here.
Otherwise, I'd tend to agree with Desolation. Being aware of your audience and pandering to it are quite different.
It's not about being humble. Writing is always a struggle. I don't mean to devalue my own work on Lit-Net but there is always something to dig and mine for, something that is more comprehensible and not just in poetry form. Short stories, plays, and books. They are not forthcoming. I'm surrounded by material in countless journals, research and inspiration coupled with what is inside of me. How on earth do I reconcile all of this into what I know to be something greater than what I have already created?Quote:
Originally Posted by Silas Thorne
Inspiration. You gotta feel it and get excited by it. If not then what you write feels stale. Just try to be inspired and forget about the great ideas, they will come.
JBI makes a good point, as usual.
My own writing is kind of odd, because of the influences I've let take hold of me--which I guess is the poetry of the avant-garde. I would say it's not very precise work, what I do, but much more about...effect? I've always kept in mind that there is probably an audience for this kind of work, though it's probably much smaller and removed from the reading of the general public.
I guess being the authentic you must always count. When we speak of influences, I have to be mindful that often it is mere fashion that comes and goes. I'm moved by different authors and poets but I'm not conscious of what those influences might be. So I read Shakespeare and Gwen Harwood. What traces do they leave when I write? I really couldn't say.
Authenticity defames me.
In what way?Quote:
Originally Posted by shortstoryfan
That's really strange. I'm terrible with modern poetry- can only make it past the nineteen-thirties. The older poetry is reassuringly more conventionally poetic.Quote:
Originally Posted by paradoxical
Try Swinburne- he's fun :)
As for what I can write, I think it would be presumptious of me to say I can write about something as if I was the fountain of knowledge on it.
I used to be able to write poetry, with varying success, but I feel my poetic soul has dried up :)
write about what others never write about.
writing is about letting one's imagination run where it had never ran before.
it is pushing one's self to places where no one else has been before.
writing is like an exploration of ideas that only you can find and put together in the way that others could not.
the ideal writer for me is when one is able to tell a book from its content not cover and being able to recongnise the writer without them revealing themselves.
That for is a true achievement of literay success.
One can tell straight away who something is by without having them to reveal themselves.
Declan was right. A lot of people here are hiding what they can write behind intellectualizing the process of writing and preaching about it. I just knocked the door of the sub-conscious and the unconscious and I ended up facing a lot of defense.
Someone said in an earlier post that an intellectual question about writing will be better than my question. And then there was no dearth of people admiring him that yes 'that' is the question one should address. Why? As Declan put it wisely - it takes a lot of courage to go there. Two or three people did go to that deeper turf. One who succeeded the most was Delta40. I am a little annoyed with people's defenses in such a safe place.
I can write about myself, my strange life. When I write there is a lot of I and my and sometimes I alienate and write he, but I always write about myself. Even on posts here I talk more about me and less about other stuff. I have tried very hard for people around to understand me, my troubles but they were never interested. So I also buried things within me and kept moving. And I walked and walked putting everything inside me into graves for four years.
I want to reclaim what I have lost. I want to know if there is something to reclaim. To me all of it looks like a redundant struggle and yet my mind never comes out of it. Can language help me out? I want to know. That is why I write. For me what I can write is an exploration of what I want to write. So for me the two questions are not really different.
I do want my writing to be a publishing success but I am finding commercial success and concerns with commercial success very redundant. Great writers were often not publishing successes in their own times - Wilde, Kierkegaard, Lawrence, Jean Rhys and innumerable others while almost all the best selling authors fill me up with disgust. If the process of writing has to be devoted to worldly ideas of success and economics then I refuse to see value in such writings.
Writing is a process that I want to enjoy. The deeper territories are unavailable to me. Mostly I write in a fit of angry passion. Somehow I am not in touch with the pain inside and that pains me a lot. I am a horrible person. It is a horror to be like me. The irony is that the horror does not come out in my writing, it is always restricted to my being, my frustration.
I put this thread up to celebrate the success we have achieved in our solitary endeavours. But it looks like people are not willing to share it. I shared my struggle. I will not share my success just like others. It would have been lovely to see people pat their own backs. Torturing oneself for improvement while not acknowledging the bounties that they have achieved is a painful enigma that most artists share. Does it help in their art? I doubt that.
I think more important than knowledge is pleasure when it comes to reading. If you can create pleasure in what you write I will find it a greater achievement.Quote:
Originally Posted by kelby_lake
About the drying up, I also feel like that. Once my imagination used to be rich with imagery of satin cloths and sharp swords. And a lot more. But all that has gone. Do you ever think about where has it all gone? Do you have any ideas what happened to all that?
'dig' and 'mine' are the words you used. I also use them. It just struck me right now that I don't really dig or mine - those are harsher metaphors than the actual process of looking deeper. What do you think on this?Quote:
Originally Posted by Delta40
How do you know that what you are going to create is going to be better than what you have already created? You are forcing your ambition on your writing. How often do you forget to enjoy writing?
I've written enough poems to know that the next one is not necessarily going to be greater than the one before. I also know my own creativity is there in me and around me. Don't make assumptions about me forcing my ambition. We can use alot of terms such as bubbling under the surface, marinating within etc. It doesn't matter. Writing is a craft and for me, as for anyone it is a personal experience. I feel both the joy and pain of writing as I follow its journey. I asked the question because this is where I am right now. A writer who is on the brink of putting together a wonderful piece of work. The issue is not merely creative but practical.Quote:
Originally Posted by dark desire
JBI- The Romantic myth of writing as a personal exercise ignores the reality that art has an implied artist most of the time.
The American confessional tradition that took over during and after the Beat generation basically cut itself off from community outside itself.
Some authors and artists create only for themselves. Therefore they can be dismissed. Even authors who do not want money but merely want recognition must realize art is not an onanistic behavior.
I largely agree with JBI, here. As much as I love Romanticism, I distrust the Romantic myths of the artist creating solely for the self without regard for the audience. In many ways, such a self-centered, onanistic approach to creating has led to a cul-de-sac of hermeticism is which a good deal of Modern and Contemporary art no longer has the least relevance to the culture as a whole... or even to a majority of that portion of the culture that is passionate about the arts.
I always admired Poe's essay upon the process of writing. In spite of the fact that he was clearly of the Romantic strain and stressed concepts of the inner mind, he was also clearly conscious as to what he was doing as an artist. Of course I suspect a good deal of the Romantic notion that reduces art to nothing more than self expression or plumbing the depths of one's inner being and merely spilling this upon the page... or the canvas... or whatever, is in actuality rooted in youth and inexperience.
Desolation- The best advice I've ever heard, and I don't remember the source, is to "Write the book that you want to read." I guess that's all you really can do, though.
To a great extent I agree with this as well. As an art-lover I am drawn to art because I love the experience art gives and I take a great deal of pleasure in the elements of art... even when the work of art conveys or deals with a subject that is in itself inherently challenging... unsettling... painful. As an artist, however, I suspect that I have been drawn to the act of creation in part because I feel a certain void... and have the need or desire... or arrogance to imagine that I could create something that would fill that void... something I want to look at... and perhaps others as well.
I think there is a certain tenuous balancing act here. On the one side I am creating that which I believe in... that which I can create. I never forget the potential audience. I have no use for the naive Romantics whose attitude is a middle-finger lifted toward the wants and desires of the audience. But I largely imagine an audience not unlike myself... with similar likes and wants. The trick is to connect with the audience that supports your work once the work is finished.
Someone said in an earlier post that an intellectual question about writing will be better than my question. And then there was no dearth of people admiring him that yes 'that' is the question one should address. Why?... it takes a lot of courage to go there. Two or three people did go to that deeper turf. I am a little annoyed with people's defenses in such a safe place.
Why do you assume that the comments concerning the artist taking the audience into consideration are inherently shallow? Attempting to divide the creative process into self-conscious intellect (bad) vs expression of inner feelings (good) is a rather naive notion of the process of creativity.
I can write about myself, my strange life. When I write there is a lot of I and my and sometimes I alienate and write he, but I always write about myself. Even on posts here I talk more about me and less about other stuff. I have tried very hard for people around to understand me, my troubles but they were never interested. So I also buried things within me and kept moving. And I walked and walked putting everything inside me into graves for four years.
I want to reclaim what I have lost. I want to know if there is something to reclaim.
Is art nothing more than personal therapy? Certainly you cannot avoid infusing a good deal of self-expression into the work of art, but very few individuals past the age of self-centered adolescence are interested in another's personal demons and angst for their own sake. The word "ART" is not unrelated to "ARTIFICE" and as such acknowledges the reality that art involves giving one's perceptions an ARTFUL form. Unless the work is aesthetically pleasing it's not likely you will garner any audience... however profound your subject may be.
I do want my writing to be a publishing success but I am finding commercial success and concerns with commercial success very redundant. Great writers were often not publishing successes in their own times - Wilde, Kierkegaard, Lawrence, Jean Rhys and innumerable others while almost all the best selling authors fill me up with disgust. If the process of writing has to be devoted to worldly ideas of success and economics then I refuse to see value in such writings.
Actually, any number of Wilde's plays did quite well, and I am more than certain he would have wholly rejected any notion of art as nothing more than personal examination and self-expression. Wilde recognized that without the aesthetic, art was little more than mental Onanism.
That's a brilliant quote and knowing it will avoid one alot of inner conflict.Quote:
Originally Posted by Neely
The old cliche, writing about what you know(and like) is the golden rule. I write about content that is character driven (and not a little bit semi-autographical). This type of content streams out of me with great quantity and a sort of automatic quality, as when you pull the tab on a coolbox(ice chest).
When I write about things of no interest, for instance forced heirship laws in France(as I am being paid to do at this moment), my writing becomes a chore and the outcome a chore to read.
I think more important than knowledge is pleasure when it comes to reading. If you can create pleasure in what you write I will find it a greater achievement.
Are you speaking of taking pleasure yourself, or the audience taking pleasure in your creation. Personally, I completely reject the notion that the artist must suffer to create. As the poet and Dante translator, John Ciardi suggested, adolescence is enough suffering for anyone. I make art with the intention of reaching an audience... even selling... but ultimately I know other more certain ways of making a living. I make art, and would continue to make art even if someone with a crystal ball assured me that I would never sell another painting... for the simple reason that I enjoy painting... I enjoy the process in spite of the challenges... in spite of the discipline it entails... perhaps just as some of us enjoy such challenging pleasures as reading Chaucer in the original Middle English or solving cross-word puzzles.
It's strange how everyone interpreted my remarks as being about money and fame. My point was it is about sharing with an audience - the professional artist is a rather new idea - virtually everybody educated was writing for audiences in much of the world for the longest time without even a thought of financial gain.Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
It isn't even reducible to aesthetics, in that something like rhetoric demonstrates that a tradition of writing can exist with its implications valued purely in the communicative abilities of its form.
The primary tendency of art was to convey, as conveyance implies an audience, art therefore is trying to convey something to the audience. Be that a ritual vessel or a bronze sculpture, a poem, a novel, or someone signing their name or wet cement.
As western people mostly, our preoccupation was with competition primarily, and religion secondarily. Therefore, Greek and Roman art is preoccupied with a sort of showing off - Greek art to my eyes more through expression and creativity, and Roman art more through perfection and scale. Something like that can be read in most traditions.
The Hebrew mentality seems more preoccupied with the conveyance of a form of wisdom/righteousness, and is devoid of heroism. The hymn's aesthetic rests in its ability to use language in praise of its subject, God, or whomever else. That is why there are so many acrostic pieces written in Classical Hebrew, in that the use of language and rhetoric in support of the text, and in interpretation of the text dominated, and still dominates the tradition.
The Talmud is an interesting example of it, in that the text works to catalog oral accounts of famous sayings about the scripture and law - there is the absence of the tradition of cataloging ships and weapons as seen in Greece, which is preoccupied primarily with showing off instead of religious rite.
To skip over to China as a counterexample, there is the emergence of divergent traditions, used primarily as a strange form of memesis. Bronze vessels in the Anyang tradition, which makes up all the famous ones we know of outside of China all have the social function of declaring a political legitimacy. Their art, and function is designed to convey the status of the user, the royal class, who had a monopoly over the technology. As the technology became standardized and more easily used, designs became more elaborate, reflecting political spreading of influence - Shaminist imagery was at its height. Eventually the forms themselves took on the role of esteem and value, and the images and design became abstract and codified - it became more important to show legitimacy by owning more, and more sets, rather than more elaborate ones.
The esteem of the item them, is put on its ability to be exclusive. If only one group of people have something, as the group widens, within themselves they must fight to determine who has the best of the lot. Such is the way with aristocracy.
Poetics themselves within the Chinese tradition preform very strangely in that they mix different concepts. The art of writing was the art of sharing, the vast majority of even famous poems being written for occasions. To write was a form of showing off, but it was also a form of association to prove you were within the right societies - taste itself is aristocratic, and the cultivatable taste demonstrates the inner value, and therefore claim an individual has to society and position. It isn't as much about belonging, or being famous, as interacting properly with those you associate with, the value resting in the capturing of the sentiment.
Other traditions still preform much differently, historically. It isn't so much about financial rewards as playing within the artistic system of function. Romanticism is just another such function, as is capitalism. Ironically the best authors and poets usually had day jobs - Eliot, editor, Stevens, Insurance Salesman, half of the Western world's art scene (and virtually all of Canada's), Government payroll through educational positions and sponsored grants.
Now that is our capitalist system, with its root in 19th century publishing. As soon as a book could be sold, it naturally became a product. The first author to really do that to any major scale, which really kicked off the library system in England, and set back publishing by about 100 years, was Sir Walter Scott, who is still read, despite being financially successful in his lifetime. Emile Zola is the best example of someone revolutionizing publishing and authorship, in that he was a pioneer of commercialism.
Now, within the capitalist grid, we consider the scoreboard, if you will, or the value system primarily through the ability for something to be sold for a profit. The bigger the sales, the better the book.
At the same time, we are not in a pure-capitalist society, so there are other traditions at work that seek to value works outside of their financial success - Romanticism entrenched that into the cultural fabric of society, and basically set up the academy to work in that way.
In other systems you have weirder situations. What does one write under communism, for instance, when financial gain is impossible? What do the State sponsored authors write during events like wartime, and revolution.
And better yet, what is the art of social identity, outside of commercial sales? Is something like peasant poetry written during the cultural revolution in China somehow elevated because its authors believed in their art and revolution more than in their wallets? The poems are still garbage, keep in mind.
As such, when one asks what to write, one must ask primarily, what tradition is one working in. In the west the tradition has always been about direct competition, and recently about the scoreboard of money. If you want to know what writes, well, write what sells. That's what society values, despite all the kicking and screaming.
Outside of that, you should write what you think people would appreciate, and enjoy reading. Thati s one way to know your work will be enjoyed, if you are good enough. If it is something enjoyable, you may not get rich, but you at least will be able to take pride in your work.
Now if you are planning on writing rants, the first thing people need to realize is that art is not about exposing the self to an audience. Most people do not care. It is about disguise and lies. It is about deception and trickery, and playing within a system that only exists for itself. That is what art is about almost always. The self has never been a dominant subject anywhere, even if Wordsworth pretended. You can see that clearly in that his best poem, 'Ode' is about mankind as a whole, and universal experience, not just himself. Tintern Abbey is similar, it is about sharing the experience, first with his sister, then with the reader.
I meant the audience taking pleasure.Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
The other things you said were helpful.
It struck me reading St Lukes and JBI that there is the opportunity to write and present well these days digitally. I saw a presentation from 2008 that said so many thousands of blogs were begun each day, (the numbers hardly matter as globally it will be enormous). Some will no doubt be still around and they will be increasing. You can write to your heart's content and maybe someone will read you.
Then there's always the possibility of using what you've written unnoticed and taking it to the audience through e-books. It offers a lot of flexibility, but you still need to make that effort.
Dark Muse, there is a quote by Franz Kafka on this, i translate:
"The most wide-spread individualism of authors is the way in which they cover-up their weaknesses".
I agree with you that the main difficulty in becomming a writer is to find what you CAN write. It took me a while to do that. After that you just brush away or minimize what you are not very good at, and stress the points you can.
Although there is another quote by Flaubert, that "the world is painted with myriads of colors, and we only use two". But ultimately no one can use all the colors without resulting to axioms such as Flaubert's, that "the writer must be invisible in his work"