Thursday, August 13, 2015

MUSINGS OF THE DAY - July 24, 2015

"Everything a writer learns about the art or craft of fiction takes just a little away from his need or desire to write at all. In the end he knows all the tricks and has nothing to say."

- Raymond Chandler -

The other day I was thinking something similar. How easy it is to get online and find all kinds of websites and blogs and think-tanks for writers on how to write. There's also the long list of ways to  figure out agents—what they want and what they don't want. Jeez, it's amazing anything is every written or published, or, for that matter, read.

And boy is there money in it. There's always some ad, book, or program that can give you the magic key to writing, to publishing, to being read, and let's not forget—to making money with your writing. I think the only ones making money are the ones selling how to do it.

I remember a time when I was so busy trying to "write well" that I was spending more time figuring it out than actually doing it. And all the while my fear increased. I can't do this. This is too hard. I'll never make it. I'm just not good enough. And before I knew it I wasn't writing but stuffing my writing in a drawer, pretending I never wanted to write in the first place.

Ugh!

So, enough of that mindless chatter that has nothing to do with writing. I decided to just write and have fun and stop trying to figure it out to guarantee a future outcome.

There's a balance point between learning to do something and doing it. 

Writing, for me, has to come first. Always. 

Then I can incorporate the tricks and gimmicks I've learned, if I want. I can keep learning about the craft of writing, because, truly, I love it too, but the learning of writing well can't replace the actual act of writing itself.


Raymond Thornton Chandler was born in Chicago, Illinois on July 23, 1888 and left this world on March 26, 1959. Chandler was a novelist and screenwriter. In 1939, Chandler's first novel, The Big Sheep, was published. 

No comments:

Post a Comment