I'm a storyteller.
More than a writer.
I've evaluated, and I've decided that some people are writers. They love to write. They love to craft sentences just so--they take careful measure of each word, every comma, the syntax, the letters, the poetry of their prose. They also tell stories, naturally, of course they do. But the art and craft of writing is enjoyable to them.
delicious, even. Sumptuous. They dig in with verve and ensconce themselves within the trenches of those letters, those paragraphs, those subjects and predicates and they make art out of each syllable. Not a single word out of place, not a semicolon misplaced. Artists of and with the written word.
While I, too, have a fondness for word-choice, a lust for the lexicon, a thing for the thesaurus, more often than not the art of my prose falls by the wayside in the interest of getting the STORY out. I find grammar and editing a huge, irritating stumbling block, and frequently eschew the rules in favor of what feels right in the moment as the story pours out.
Not that the stories are necessarily of any quality, but that's the way it is with me.
I have often become disheartened whilst reading a quality writer's work. Admiring the gorgeous creation before my eyes whilst simultaneously lamenting my own childish, amateurish abilities. And I wonder 'why can't I write like THIS?' I mean, storylines aside, soap opera versus oscar-winning story aside, why the fuck can't I compose like this?
I ridicule myself for the shit that I've shat, the putresence that has flowed from this brain and these clumsy fingers, and I brood about it.
Because a soap opera is a soap opera not because of the storylines. It's the mediocre, hackneyed writing and the d-list quality of the performances (and the filming style etc..)
In another form those same plot lines and character archetypes are greek myth, are biblical, are classical literature, are fairytales, are opera, are award-winning, gripping, must-see academy award winning plotlines. They are human truths, with themes that run deep, to the heart and core of who we are as a people, as a society, as a culture, as a species. The scandalous, the broken moral codes, the things we'd like to keep secret about ourselves and can't get enough of exposing in others. The what and the why, the who and the where of the human experience.
But when Steinbeck writes it it is art.
When Nora Roberts writes it, it is kinda schlocky.
When I write it?
Have I mentioned that my therapist tells me I have unrealistic expectations about career and performance? An unrealistic perception of myself and an unhealthy need for an unattainable perfection?
In anycase. I'm a storyteller more than I am a writer.
More than a writer.
I've evaluated, and I've decided that some people are writers. They love to write. They love to craft sentences just so--they take careful measure of each word, every comma, the syntax, the letters, the poetry of their prose. They also tell stories, naturally, of course they do. But the art and craft of writing is enjoyable to them.
delicious, even. Sumptuous. They dig in with verve and ensconce themselves within the trenches of those letters, those paragraphs, those subjects and predicates and they make art out of each syllable. Not a single word out of place, not a semicolon misplaced. Artists of and with the written word.
While I, too, have a fondness for word-choice, a lust for the lexicon, a thing for the thesaurus, more often than not the art of my prose falls by the wayside in the interest of getting the STORY out. I find grammar and editing a huge, irritating stumbling block, and frequently eschew the rules in favor of what feels right in the moment as the story pours out.
Not that the stories are necessarily of any quality, but that's the way it is with me.
I have often become disheartened whilst reading a quality writer's work. Admiring the gorgeous creation before my eyes whilst simultaneously lamenting my own childish, amateurish abilities. And I wonder 'why can't I write like THIS?' I mean, storylines aside, soap opera versus oscar-winning story aside, why the fuck can't I compose like this?
I ridicule myself for the shit that I've shat, the putresence that has flowed from this brain and these clumsy fingers, and I brood about it.
Because a soap opera is a soap opera not because of the storylines. It's the mediocre, hackneyed writing and the d-list quality of the performances (and the filming style etc..)
In another form those same plot lines and character archetypes are greek myth, are biblical, are classical literature, are fairytales, are opera, are award-winning, gripping, must-see academy award winning plotlines. They are human truths, with themes that run deep, to the heart and core of who we are as a people, as a society, as a culture, as a species. The scandalous, the broken moral codes, the things we'd like to keep secret about ourselves and can't get enough of exposing in others. The what and the why, the who and the where of the human experience.
But when Steinbeck writes it it is art.
When Nora Roberts writes it, it is kinda schlocky.
When I write it?
Have I mentioned that my therapist tells me I have unrealistic expectations about career and performance? An unrealistic perception of myself and an unhealthy need for an unattainable perfection?
In anycase. I'm a storyteller more than I am a writer.
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1 comment:
so, what are these unrealistic expectations for career, performance, and life do you have?
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