Hello Dan, 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? >
No, I've never really taken a class on writing, much less taught one. But I do think practice is better than not-practice. No matter how little practice improves technique, it's a lot more than none. I subscribe to the HS Truman dictum, try it, and if it doesn't work try something else. > 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. > And yet you just did. Notice that? You might not feel like you communicated a great deal with that little verbal formulation, and yet I feel like I understand you completely, and identify with you a great deal. I appreciate some time to myself to write right now, to have the words and the means to express them. "Lucky" might not be the right term exactly, as if the whole thing had been left to chance but people often use the term to mean "fortunate" and I do feel so. > 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. > Practice. That's what I'm tellin' you, man. Stories come from the practice of telling stories. At least in my experience. The more I spill out, the more that arise. There is no finite end to the stories that can be told, just from one unwritten life. And there are so, so many unwritten lives to choose from. Just today, I began to think in earnest on the strange case of Sam Strange and SO much stuff came to me, begging to be written. I'll keep you posted on whether any of it actually does get written, and if it doesn't seem like garbage, I'll share it with you. > > 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. > > One definition of "garbage" is stuff that doesn't earn you a living. By that definition, anything that earns you a living is NOT garbage. One man's trash, another man's treasure, as it were. Speaking of ma, as it were. I'll give her your regards. Take care, John PS: and yeah, there's more than one way of "earning" and more than one way of "living". Money isn't everything. 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
