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Phase Shift
I'm sure there have been dozens of new users proclaiming that they will henceforth embrace their inner writer. This entry is no different. In my last visit to the house where I was raised ("home"), I was suddenly shaken when I was cleaning out the old closets. Along with my neglected copy of The Elements of Style were a handful of publishing books, the kind that tell you how to get your work in print. They were annual editions, and I remember saving up to buy them. The year inscribed on the covers tells me that I was in the 7th grade at the time.
The decade between then and now has meandered more than my early ambition would suggest. Somewhere along the way I was distracted by the poison apple called practicality. I sunk my teeth in and staggered droopily between jobs and majors. I didn't see the irony in the quest for my Purpose Driven Life even as I supplemented my school studies with Camus, and watched and rewatched Fight Club and American Beauty. The things you own end up owning you-- lawyers make alot of money, maybe I should look into law school.
Still, a sheepish desire to write lingered. I wrote eloquent posts on poker, responded to blogs, wrote on bodybuilding. You name it. I would bait unwitting classmates into reading graded essays: "heh. Look what I wrote here". I would happily edit friends' papers, and soon became known for it. I added narrative punch to my assigned essays, to which I received comments like "Great description!" or "Avoid excess words" depending on the professor. Occassionally, I would return to abandoned journals, scrawling soon forgotten prose in frenzied bouts of inspiritation. Mostly, I just plodded on.
Finally, I decided to write. I enrolled in a "Compository Writing" class to hone my craft. The instructor had an irritating habit of warning us not to "buy into your own bullshit". She also liked Virginia Woolf. Talk about bullshit. I don't take most things seriously, but when I write, I am sincere; I am more of a Bukowski guy . It wasn't long before I dropped the class.
()
A year later, I took another shot at it. I found a writing class I loved (The History of Rock and Roll). My off-the-cuff insights that always surprised my arms-length friends had found a place. Bewildered people who saw me as "too deep", withdrawn, or regularly asked "who says that" to comments I make suddenly had a lense that they could understand me through. It made sense to me.
And so I started to say it. "I want to be a writer." I found, to my surprise, eager support. What's more, I now find myself typing away at another website.
As Edward Albee wrote in the Zoo Story: “sometimes a person has to go a very long distance out of his way to come back a short distance correctly.”
- whatthebillyo@yahoo.com's blog
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Copyright 2008 - A Writers Cult, LLC
cool. what's your name ?
dont think id seen ya before.
cool blog. i hope to see you in the workshop when it gets back to up and running in the next two months. no one here is going to mold you to their like, i can offer you at least that. you will also get constructive criticism from at least eighty percent of the members here, eighty percent or more. this is a great writing community, definitely a place to help hone your craft a bit.
also, chuck's essays helped a lot of us. his essay on "thought" verbs i think could help you in a few places above. but ultimately, improving your writing takes years and years. the honing will come naturally, but you have to write every day. when you begine and maintain writing every day, you will then be a writer.
welcome to the cult !
-kabol
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Thanks for reading. The name's Bill. I joined this site two days ago after I was referred during a chance meeting with a long-forgotten friend. This site is still very foreign to me, and the above post is the first one I made, so you wouldn't have seen me around.
It's good to see I am already getting writing suggestions. I perused Chuck's essays but didn't find a match to the one you mentioned. Could you be more specific?
Also, you said that workshop will get "back to up and running in the next two months." I didn't realize until now that it was down. Bummer. Is there some other place I should be posting writings for feedback? I'd appreciate any random advice on how to get started with this site too.
Thanks!
-Bill
welcome bill. i'm not part of the writing workshop but i hear it's a great place to hone your craft as jkabol mentioned. jump into the forums and let other members get to know you. there are open threads where you can submit your work and though the response may not be as "active" as, i suppose, the workshop forums, it's still a great way to get yourself out there. i enjoyed reading your post, it's apparent that you put a lot of thought into the way you write and how you express yourself.
Welcome! (Also, click on "edit" on your first post, then right clck on your YouTube link and select "remove link". I can't read your post because the video's blocking it!
Monkey, I think you're having computer issues. I looked at his first post and it looks perfectly fine, other than the commas on either side of the video which is randomly in the middle of the page. Anyway, it's not blocking anything from what I'm seeing.
It's fixed now...I'm gonna start doing screencaps so people don't think I'm crazy...
Thanks for the advice, and I'm glad you enjoyed the post! I always take time to choose descriptors, and the habit of self analysis has improved my ability at it.
Hello and welcome Bill.
I loved reading your blog entry.
Have a good look around and start posting, as Kabol siad you will get a lot of feedback here.
Thanks Barca. I've been looking around, but I don't really see a place for me to post something for people to review. I've got tons of stuff I'd like feedback on, including my current novella. I haven't gotten my 5 reviews out yet. It's been a long tedious process so far.
I wrote a poem yesterday. It is not hitting me in the gut the way I think it maybe should, but maybe I'm just desensitized. Should I post it here, start a new blog topic or what?
hey, bill. just went searching for the name of the essay, and remembered that that essay was the first time chuck used the stripper anology on us
thought verbs and thesis statements
essay 10 circa 2004
the workshop is where you'll get the major feedback. i wouldnt be in too much of a hurry, however, because it is in fragmented working condition. many reviews get lost in the ether. they dont make it to the members. no idea why. and several of the submissions dont have names on them. that's using Explorer and Firefox. Safari is useless because with Safari you cant even download the submissions. there is a may 20th deadline.
it is very cool, if you want to work on reviews in the meantime. but create a folder on your computer and save the work to documents there, so later if one doesnt show up, you just copy and paste when the site goes back to full capacity.
spend the time, also, working with the previous essays. the first ten have thus far been the most helpful to me personally. also, read the Q&A sessions as they provide great insight. look up assignments crafted by authors after reading the essay you just read, et cetera
you'll find tons of help here
the workshop is just on the fritz at the moment.
good luck and see you there
ask questions if any arise
-kabol
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..
Kabol,
Thanks for the followup. I found essay 10 to talk about Thesis statements, but not so much thought verbs (Its title was "Beware the Thesis Statement"). Anyway, I definitely found it an interesting read. Chuck asked us to look at some of our favorite books, so I looked at Gilead, winner of the Pulitzer Prize. It opens with a thesis statement of sorts, but then again it's not best-seller material either. I wonder, how great is the rift between plot driven works and literary pieces? Cormac McCarthy wrote one of the best books I've ever read with The Road, but it was also an instant best seller. Then again, he is Cormac McCarthy.
Anyway, poem is up under the new blog. Check it out, and shoot me some thoughts.
Thanks!
Bill
I thought the think verb essay would have either been #6 or #18. It seems like it was in June he did it because he says something about how for the next six months you cant use them and you'll thank him at the end of the year for it.
Thanks Nathaniel. #6 it was. Glad that I read that, it's something I try to do in my fiction. I think that thought verbs are OK in memoirs. But who knows?
This is a question to everyone, since people seem to be reading the responses:
How do you feel about the Bukowski clip?
I strongly believe that form follows function. IMO, once you start writing something because of the way it sounds, rather than the way it FEELS, you're lost.
nate, you were right, thanks for that. not all of my pistons were firing today. but really, they seldom do..
bill, youre right: the road is one of the best novels to have come around in quite a while, but his books have been around for years and you just never ever see fanfare over the orchard keeper or child of god. i havent read suttree yet. blood meridian is fucking harrowing. anyway, i could go on like this.. the point is, though it wasnt my type of story to read--the end of human life and a father and a son fucking walking and that's the novel--the writing was phenominal. it was pretty much an instant classic and won the pulitzer and cormac has spent many years of his life utterly fucking starving dead ass broke. the road is to me by far not a commercial book, it just sold commercially. it certainly was not a plot driven book. i have no problem calling it literary fiction.
i cannot fucking wait for ridley scott to sink his teeth into blood meridian.