On Thu, Apr 04, 2024 at 06:36:11PM +0530, Udhay Shankar N via Silklist wrote: > I found this perspective (from a newsletter on, of all things, Brit > politics) fasinating. Basically, "everything is interesting." > > What are the group's thoughts on both the process of writing, and the > specific hypothesis that "everything is interesting"? > > https://iandunt.substack.com/p/how-to-write
I half-expected some kind of advice on technique, but turned out, this was nice, interesting read. As far as I can tell, it was very truthful, too, comments also worth ones time. Personally, I come from line of thought claiming that, while one can master a technique, or rather keep improving it endlessly, there is only certain level to which a technique alone will take us. In order to really fly, a spark is necessary. I could also say "a talent", but my understanding is that there is slight difference between the two, talent being more of material world and obviously connected in meaning with ancient measure of weight (roughly, 26-27kg, but this depended on whether one would have asked Athenian or Egyptian). So, one could have a musical talent, or one could have a talent of silver or of gold, even. Spark, on the other hand, is non-measurable, cannot be bought or sold (although its owner can), even thou it can be lost, or at least it can be forgotten. But chances are, I may be prejudiced about this. There are examples of famous writers, who do not boast about sparks, but instead claim they are writing thirty or fifty pages a day, like some posessed typewriter from hell. Then again, maybe their spark is just this bright and mighty. My own spark test for books is simple - do I feel a need to read it again, some time later? Sure, there are few such books and each time they give me something new. Some books have got ten sparks (one spark if I read it twice). I am not talking about "C Programming Language" or some other tech manual, of course. And I do not mean the book has to be highly regarded by literati - Gaiman's "American gods" (in tandem with "Anansi boys") easily scored three or four, Sun Tzi "Art of War" got two-three, and "Golem XIV" by Stanislaw Lem got at least ten, all scores on a "so far" basis. Some philosophical tractates so far, below one (i.e. I might have read them once, but hardly twice), although "Summa technologiae" scored somewhere from two to five (I do not always recall). From what I have heard about Popper, his books might get solid two, if/when I lay my hands etc, but this too may be my prejudice. Anyway, despite sparks etc, not everybody is recognised before death and not everybody is remembered after it, either. There was a Polish poet/writer/philosopher, Cyprian Kamil Norwid [1] [2], who died destitude in exile (after leading destitude life in exile), in certain institution near Paris. Some (much? most?) of his belongings, including papers, have been put to fire by nuns running the place. About fifty years later what was left of it filled single book of collected works, six hundred pages worth. In a way, Norwid was lucky, eh? Finally, since a well-curated quotation on wiki is worth a billion words, some may enjoy those: [3] [4]. I did enjoyed them. [1] https en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyprian_Norwid [2] https en.wikisource.org/wiki/In_Verona [3] https en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Writing [4] https en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Authors -- Regards, Tomasz Rola -- ** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature. ** ** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home ** ** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened... ** ** ** ** Tomasz Rola mailto:[email protected] ** -- Silklist mailing list [email protected] https://mailman.panix.com/listinfo.cgi/silklist
