About writing (this blog, and in general)

Husby writing, again. You will see a trend here, I know! But there's a good reason: among the two of us, the one that really enjoys writing is me. I'll go out a leg and declare here that I would even like writing to become my life, one day. So here's a post about writing.

Dreams and wishes by Rebeca-Cygnus

I always thought of writing as a form of art. Like all art, it's part talent, part vocation, part hard work/practice. I like to think I got a lot of points in the vocation department, less in talent, and much less in the hard work. Especially because, compared to many readers I know, I don't read much, and I still didn't read many classics and non-classics that consensus declares as fundamental.

This, I thought, was something of a problem if wanting to be a good writer. Turns out it really is, but not according to the "Creative Writing" community, which I previously thought to be an authority on the subject. It's actually not even a community, but some kind of an intellectual movement, and a movement that happens to have taken over universities in U.S., at least in its own field, in the last decade in particular.

An interesting and fact-drenched read about the subject comes from, as many other fact-driven articles, the webzine Quillette, by Claire Lehmann: another "controversial" figure that I happen to agree with a lot. The article is titled "With Stories Like These, Who Needs Talent?", and is clearly a sarcastic take on the saying "with friends like these, who needs enemies", adapted to the world of writing, fiction in particular.

I will leave conclusions about that article to you, but to summarize quickly some of my thoughts about it, I'll make a list:

• It looks like I was right about me being wrong: I do need to read a lot to be a good writer.
• It seems like there is still need of good fiction, and probably the need will never end. Good for me and all aspiring writers!
• It also seems like the fact I want to write without having a specific education about writing is considered normal nowadays, although it doesn't look like a good thing.
• At the very least, not belonging to this "movement", actually gives me an advantage, it seems, because I would have ended up repeating that boring style they all seem to share.

Those are some really mixed points, I admit, and filled with doubts.

This is because, of course, it's pointless to talk about this until I finally write something that can be judged by readers.

I'm just kind of happy to see that I'm not missing out in not belonging to this Creative Writing thing, and at the same time happy to see that, if anything, plain old talent seems to be the decisive factor for a writer. And talent can still be developed in traditional ways, although it's also one of those things you either got, or you don't...

This brings me to writing this blog. It's of course a way of practicing (I might even post here some fiction, one day), and it gives me an opportunity to be judged in things like style, and the generic "feel" you might get from it, especially if you are a native English speaker, which I'm not.

As always, I ended up talking about a slightly political subject, which might seem contradictory, because with the first post I clearly stated that we don't want to be classified anywhere along a traditional political spectrum. But that's exactly why I don't think there's a contradiction here: I talk about political issues in the sense that they are issues because they are political, and I'm basically writing that politics should stay outside of them.

It is a shame that nowadays even something so sublime and ethereal like fiction writing should be influenced by politics, and not just in its contents (which has always been the case), but in the very way it's taught and done, as a craft, which in fact the aforementioned article criticizes as a word to be associated to writing.

In few words, here's a conclusive thought about writing, and writing this blog:

Writing is a form of self-expression, but also an art, difficult to master like all arts, requiring talent like all arts. There shouldn't be one right way of doing it, but at the same time, there should be no denying the existence of good ways of doing it. - So please rate this blog not only about its contents, but about its form and style, as a work of literature, even if it's not: you will help a writer-to-be in the process!

See you soon!