Writing Forum

You know what I think, Tobber?

Writing is like any art form; one can take classes, they can attend workshops, they can study famous pieces and try to steal off with chunks of someone else's ideas, and they may become quite skilled at some technique or style, but...viewers like art because of its uniqueness. Plus, art is subjective. If you pay too much attention to a lecture on "how to write the perfect novel," you may very well end up with a finished manuscript...a perfect one even, at least according to the lecturer. But so will every other attendee. How is your story different? Why will readers like it? What would make them choose your book over someone else's in the class?

Writing resources of any variety should not be looked upon as gospel (even gospel shouldn't be looked upon as gospel, but that's a conversation for a different post). They are mere guides for those who cannot figure out how to jump from the cliff on their own and need someone to explain it to them (move to cliff edge, right before left. When you reach your destination, do not look down. Close your eyes. Feel the breeze. Imagine yourself becoming that breeze. Tilt forward. Leave the earth behind. Die). We don't actually NEED someone to explain this to us. We simply need to look at it from a different angle (preferably not the one that involves you scrunched up on the rocks at the bottom of the cliff) and make it our own.

Yesterday evening, I attended a poetry reading. I am not a poet, not at all. However, I feel that poetry is best experienced live with the poet's tone of voice and gesture repertoire and individual articulations all incorporated. Words change when they're read aloud. They just do. Even my own stuff. When someone quotes a passage of my own work to me, I often wonder who wrote it. Writing becomes "art" when it leaves your brain and enters someone else's, mixing with their individual combination of circumstances, which the writer cannot predict. There is a certain feral-ness to art. The same story can be read a million different ways. So don't try to fit the mould with online videos or books on writing or other various resources; you'll never manage it. Write what you like, then write it with your own articulations and uniquenesses. Look to those workshops and conferences for inspiration if you need to, but certainly don't craft your work by them. They are just one way of doing things out of thousands.

If the option is available, take a glimpse into someone else's interpretation of your words by having them read your work aloud to you. In the end, we write so others will read. Being able to see the reactions of your readers will be the best lecture you will ever attend.

Sorry if this post was a little "out there." I did mention that I was at a poetry reading last night, right?




Come check out my writing website here: http://katmhawthorne.com, or my editing website here: http://www.movetothewrite.com