Hello everyone On Wed, Oct 13, 2010 at 10:49 AM, John Carl <[email protected]> wrote: > Thanks for posting that in its entirety, Dan. > >> >> >> Dan comments: >> >> I have never taught writing but Robert Pirsig did. I found it >> illuminating that he felt the best way to teach writing isn't teaching >> writing. Rather, pure quality should be taught. I am still not exactly >> sure what he means by that. Any ideas? >> >> > > An old phrase jumps to mind - if you want to paint a perfect picture, just > become perfect and then paint naturally. I think that captures the essence > of the connection between arete and composition. Part of the process is > trying, seeing mistakes, correcting and trying again. Sorta like the answer > given to the young man trying to get directions from the old lady in an old > joke: How do I get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, young man. Practice. > > Here's the problem though, practice takes time - time spent away from the > other aspects of life. Time robbed from being good and spent on writing > means you have to sacrifice the attainment of perfection in order to write > about it. A self-defeating proposition then. How do great writers do it? > I'd guess that they are geniuses at creating extra time. A constant > struggle for me, as I now have to quit practicing here, and load up my ma > and her wheelchair to the hospital for her MRI. More later!
Hi John To my mind, practice entails learning, not teaching, although in a sense I suppose practice is teaching oneself. But if all it took was practice to be a good writer, why not just have the student practice, practice, practice? Isn't that the way most writing courses are taught? Like I said, I have never taught writing nor have I taken a wrting class, so I don't really know. Do you? I notice most people I associate with in my personal life do not read, much less write. And even the readers I know don't write. I guess it's easier to pick up a book and read it rather than sitting down and writing but I don't pretend to understand. I tend to get aggravated when people tell me I am lucky to be able to write. Luck has nothing to do with it. I write because there is something inside of me that only writing will let out. But for the life of me, I can't begin to tell you what that something is. I am not a great writer. I am not even a good writer, in my opinion. Still, if I could do anything, it would be to write. Even so, there are times when all I write is garbage, most times really. And I know it is garbage. So I stop. No amount of practice is going to make garbage into anything but trash. There is no sense in forcing it. But then, one day I will just sit down in front of the computer and start tap tap tapping on the keys and a story appears. i don't know where they come from. Even great writers tend to write garbage at times though. I've notice that. I guess they have to earn a living. If a person was to learn pure quality first, would it keep them from writing garbage? Perhaps. At least they'd know it was garbage. But they must know that anyway, I suspect. Anyway, thanks for wrting, and wish your mother well. Dan Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
