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MAKING_WRITERS

                                           July 6-21, 2008

                           What I mean by "being
                           a writer" is another     Financial income
                           question, though.        is a common measure,
You can probably                                    but I think it's
divide up what makes a                              only a rough proxy
writer into two kinds                               for what we're really
of characteristics:                                 interested in.

(1) There needs to be
some sort of drive to      Drive.
get words out of your      Inspiration.
brain and into the         Passion.          It's not clear to me that
world.                                       this is the same as
                                             "having something to say".
(2) There is also a
need for the              Determination.           It could be that wanting
determination to slog     Professionalism.         to Be A Writer is enough,
through a project to      Dedication.              even in the absence of
the end.                                           any unique knowledge or
                                                   insight.
(not to mention the need to work
at developing writing skills)                         I realize that this is
                                                      an all-too-common
                                                      phenomena, and it seems
    As for myself, my                                 like we could do with
    conceit is that I'm                               less of it -- I just
    someone with a bit of                             don't want to be
    the first, but it's                               dogmatic on the point.
    clear that I'm lacking
    in a bit of the second.                           Sometimes working
                                                      backwards really
    There's always been a lot                         does work.
    of us "I'd write a book
    if I could only find the                          The painter may begin
    time" types out there.                            by playing with paint
                                                      on canvas, and only
                                                      belatedly begin
                                                      thinking about
                                                      painting, and what
And possibly there's a                                point there might be
third factor of "personal                             in doing it.
circumstance".  For
example, Heinlein had a
theory -- based on his own                 Even writers completely clueless
circumstances, and probably                about why they write might produce
a few biographies he had in                something worth reading -- we're
mind -- that there was a                   all relatively clueless in many
correlation between health                 ways, and knowing the answer to
problems and becoming a                    life the universe and everything
writer.                                    really can not be a necessity
                                           before proceeding with the work.
                                           On some level, we're all blundering
                                           through, and sometimes, someone
                                           swinging above their weight
                                           actually does hit the mark.

                                                       IGNORANT




                                  It's probably a little easier to see
                                  what I mean if you think about other
                                  arts, like painting or music.
                                  Smearing some paint around until it
                                  looks cool, or noodling around the
                                  keyboard until it sounds good are not
                                  unusual ways of proceeding.  They're
                                  perhaps not recommended, but they're
                                  accepted, at least until you find
                                  some other way of working.


                         It's harder to think of analogs
                         of those with the written word,
                         because words are different --
                         they're an art of denotative          CONCRETE_MUSIC
                         meanings, much harder to get
                         right by chance or improvisation.

                                Some candidates:
                                beatnik poetry
                                pulp fiction
                                freestyle rap                  LONG_SHADOW



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