When I (was fortunate enough to somehow stumble upon and) read Stephen King's little book "On Writing", I was astonished and humbled, at the same time, by the fact that such a marvelous talent had taken the time, effort and energy to put down in writing so that the likes of me could read, his 'secrets' about how to tell stories.
And, so, I decided to devote my writing, or at least some one it (until I feel like he's gotten enough credit) to Mr. King's generous impetus. And, of course, this doesn't mean that he's responsible for the quality of my writing; but, if anyone deserves some moral credit for these machinations, he does.
Today, I want to reprise a topic which was, oddly enough, created by the inimitable Harvey Weinstein's lecherous activities, as have come to be bandied about in our beloved "Press" throughout the last many disgusting months. Of course, once those who had taken Harvey's money to keep quiet about what he had done to them, decided that they could gain something even more than handsome sums of hush money by eschewing their own moral and legal obligations to keep their contractually purchased word, the floodgates opened and all manner of men (and some women) have been ousted from their positions of political and financial power, and their lives ruined as much as (and sometimes more than) their victims' lives were harmed because of wrongs the lecherous (at least supposedly) committed. Men (almost entirely) who (allegedly) 'sexually harassed' one, or more, women, and who stood to lose their livelihoods and the great fortunes they had amassed, all of a sudden, started feeling the heat that their (alleged) vile actions deserved. Deserved, if true, yes. Deserved at some time. Yes, absolutely. But, deserve, now?
Now, Virginia, THAT is the question, the answer to which, threatens to destroy the very fabric of the "civilization" which some 6,000,000,000 (billion) people or so depend upon daily for their bread.
Today, in fact, a (now) woman, is trying to see to it that one Brett Kavanaugh, nominated for appointment to the US Supreme Court, and by all accounts (save, one at least), a stand-up guy, exquisitely qualified for the post, does not get that appointment. This woman -- who for some reason is identified in the press by her married name of Ford, as well as her not-married name, Blasey -- claims that, when she was in high school, BK cornered her in a room at a party, and drunk, "sexually assaulted" her.
There's a lot of, obvious, political timing in this particular accusation. Without this accusation, Brett Kavanaugh would have long since been confirmed and sitting on the U. S. Supreme Court -- and he may very well be anyway, since, even though SHE brought this accusation to light voluntarily, she is now refusing to testify before the committee that is considering his nomination "until the FBI investigates".
Sound fair? Right? This ought to be investigated! Right? We don't want sexual assaulters sitting on the Supreme Court! Right!?
Yes, we want the members of the United States Supreme Court to have 'impeachable' reputations. I think so, anyway.
But, I want to leave those thorny, difficult and eventually unsolvable issues regarding Brett Kavanaugh's character to one-side. They are important. Clearly. But, there is something far, far, far more important at stake if the public and Congress delay confirmation of a Supreme Court Justice based upon a 30-year old, supposed, event, which was known by the alleged viction, Christine Blasey Ford, AND her husband, AND her therapist, AND the long-time senator from the Great State of California, Dianne Feinstein, for the entire time Brett Kavanaugh served on an important Federal Court and distinguished himself as a jurist of remarkable talent and capability.
Personally, I do not think it will make much difference, if any, to the trajectory that this Country is taking whether it is Brett Kavanaugh, or someone with more 'liberal leanings' who is appointed to fill the vacant seat. So, from my point of view, what it stake here is much more sinister. It is the destruction, literally, of the basic tenets of civilization and a return to anarchy.
I kid you not.
I happened upon this realization when I was, recently, vacationing in Scotland, on one of those cursed 'bus tours', where everyone rides around feeling nauseated from the swaying and jostling of the bus, and the incessant droning on of the 'tour guide'.
Our particular tour guide, was a remarkably knowledgeable woman named Deidre. As we twaddled languorously through the Scottish highlands, she regaled us with a history lesson the likes of which I could not have even remotely attained in my schooling. Leaving aside the fact that I kinda wished that she knew something more about the countryside than she appeared to, her historical and political commentary was informative. And, frighteningly, if unintentionally, instructive.
While I may (almost certainly do) have some of the details (both important and not) out-of-kilter, the fundamental point is that "House of Windsor" (... a modern, I think 20th Century) re-naming, probably to shed the implications of the original name of the line, "Hanover" ...), which is presently represented by the person of Queen Elizabeth, was installed by Parliament on the heels of a bloody 'coup' back, I think, in the 1600's. There was no 'vote of the people', no succession by the heavenly right of primogeniture, just the decision of some old men that the then current resident of the office 'had to go'. Well, he couldn't very well complain -- other than about being murdered and then drawn and quartered for good measure -- since he, also, was installed as the King of England by another bloody coup.
So, on the strength of a murder of someone who had murdered someone else in order to ascend to the wealth, land ownership and power of the British crown, the "House of Windsor" was handed the 'keys to the nation', and an astonishing (even for this day of billionaires-under-a-foot-everywhere) wealth. They didn't buy it. They weren't voted in as "Monarchs" (which is a ludicrous thought anyway). There was no popular agreement. The House of Hanover/Windsor was simply GIVEN mind numbing power and wealth.
Oh, to be sure, it takes some skill to keep a "line" going for all these hundreds of years, and the House of Windsor's times have not always been good ... there has been talk about "abolishing the Monarchy" when Prince Phillip's ex-Wife, Diana, was killed in an auto-accident and the "House of Windsor's" reaction was not, well, royal enough.
But, the point is not to trash Queen Elizabeth or her "line". The current occupants of this 'office' seem nice and dedicated to helping their 'subjects'.
The point of all of this is: Let's assume that, somewhere back before Parliament authorized the murder of the King and his replacement with a member of the House of Hanover, that, somewhere, there was a 'legitimate' King or Queen of England. Whatever legitimate means to you. (If 'legitimate' means, to you, whomever is big enough to hold the throne, then even a coup can represent a legitimate installation, but for the sake of the argument, I decline to accept murder as a basis for achieving legitimacy.) So, if murder is not a legitimate basis on which to start a new monarchical line, I think we have to conclude that the current "House of Windsor" ... its entire line, is just a long-lived of people that have absolutely no right to the power, titles and authority that they have succeeded to; that they are illegitimate; they are frauds; and they are no better than thieves.
These are harsh words, but they have a point.
So, let's return to the remarkably stale claims of one Christine Blasey Ford that she was sexually assaulted by Brett Kavanaugh. Let's say, just for the sake of the argument, that her claims are true. What then? Do we observe the fundamental and basic rule of law (which came down to us, not coincidentally through the English "Bill of Rights" that came into being about the time the House of Hanover/Windsor came into "power" on the heels of a murder) that 'stale claims' (in Federal Law and most States, the longest 'statute of limitations' that this author is aware of is 10 years) are barred and cannot be litigated-no remedy can be given for them? Or do throw 'due process' out the window and do whatever we damn well please, on the spur of the moment?
And, if you say, "Yes!" This is important! Then how do you stop, if you want to stop, from tracing the illegitimacy of the British Crown back to the murder of the prior "House"? Yes, it's 400 or so years, instead of 30 years, but there is no analytical distinction. A wrong is a wrong. And, by the same token, why do we not go back to the 1800's when the American Indians were rousted out of their centuries old homes, and return "their" lands to them? Or, for that matter, why don't we trace back the possession of Jerusalem back to the last "rightful" owners and award that Holy City to their heirs?
I do not say these things to leave you without an answer, because there is an answer, and a good one. But, you'll want to figure it out according to your own lights, because the only good answer this author can come up with results in Christine Blasey Ford being ignored, and Brett Kavanaugh being confirmed as the next Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
So, which is it? Consistency, finality and regularity in the application of laws, and respect for the lives that people have lived for decades and centuries, regardless of the harms that may have brought these 'lines' into currency? Or is it the ad hoc justice that gives no one solace, gives no one but the terrorists comfort, and results in the constant warring between factions as to who is top dog? Christine Blasey Ford's attempt to torpedo Brett Kavanaugh's nomination is the least responsible, fair or just thing she could possibly have done at this juncture in time -- and the most destructive possible of the "Rule of Law" under which we all live and enjoy a moderately advanced and well-organized lives.
180919
Wednesday, September 19, 2018
Tuesday, March 13, 2018
Thank You Mr. King -- Installment 4
Outlining is the comeuppance of many a student, harshly scolded by their spinster (not, BTW a 'sexist' term, as it applies equally to old crotchety never married men and old crotchety never married women - my oldest brother could, with definitional rectitude be called a 'spinster', except that he doesn't sit about and knit, so far as I know) teachers, that neither they, nor their writing, will ever amount to anything if they do not learn to prepare a "proper" outline, including all of the various indentations and subsections and subsubsubsubsections that the Platonic Ideal of a Good and Right Outline would have.
Outlining -- or the imagined necessity to be able to do it in order to "be" a "good writer" -- is, also, me thinks, the one evil, perverted, pernicious "stop" which has caused more promising writers to lie down their pens, pencils, typewriters or keyboards than any single other cause in the history of the entire galaxy.
I am not saying that an "outline" is not a good thing for certain purposes, none of which have the slightest thing to do with the quality of one's writing. It is good if you need an organizational structure to display to your law school teachers so that they will think that, by displaying a talent for organization, you are similarly displaying a talent for legal acumen, understanding and ability. it is good to be able to outline if you are writing a governmental pamphlet on 'How To Obtain A Medicare Card Before You Die From Waiting For It To Arrive" -- yet it is clear that apparently none of the writers of governmental pamphlets that deal with how to do something to get something the government provides have acquainted themselves with the fine points of outlining. And, outlining MAY be important if you have a brilliant idea for the next 'iPhone' and you want to someone to bankroll you for its research and production.
But, I now have it on the excellent authority of J. A. Jance, T. Jefferson Parker, and James Rollins (aka James Paul Czajkowski) ... and, if I read him right, Mr. Stephen King, also, that 'outlining', per se, is mostly something that writers do to show their editors and book-publishers just enough information to persuade them to pay the writer an advance against the eventual royalties. Yet, time, after time, after time, these authors regale us with stories about book publishers, who, having given an advance based upon some outline, receive a rather much different book than the outline promised. From a logistical standpoint, for a writer, this is problematic only if the eventual 'product' of the outline sucks.
Assuming, however that the eventual book does not suck -- and let's say in Mr. Stephen King's case -- not only does the manuscript not suck, but it is fabulous, generates world-wide acclaim and bunches of money for the author and the publisher, then one might naturally want to ask what the purpose of the outline ever was, and do "real" authors use them? And, if so, why? And, if not, why not?
Well, as I understand what J.A. Jance, T. Jefferson Parker, and James Rollins all three said when they spoke at the 2018 Tucson Festival of Books in the UA Mall Tent at 1:30 p.m. on the afternoon of March 10, 2018, it turns out that, basically, books write themselves -- at least once you have an idea that is worth writing about, and you are capable of a somewhat more than rudimentary application of the standard tools of writing to that particular idea. And, of course, you can't be lazy and shiftless, because writing, like all jobs does not do itself. True, a book might 'reveal itself' to you, but YOU still have to write it down. And, in a fashion such that it makes sense to everyone else, and not just you in your dreams.
Interestingly enough -- not that I would be arrogant enough to speak for a great writer like Stephoen King -- I'd wager that Mr. King would agree with me. In fact, if you take the time to read his little book (and it is a little book) "On Writing", you'll see that, like Jance, Parker and Rollins (they are only in this order because, as the Moderator said, we are the handmaidens of that tyranny knowns in erudite circles as the Alphabet) ... ((((Hmm. In this day and age, one wonders if someone will discover a sexist, anti-feminist, sexually discriminatory original purpose for calling men "men" and women "women" ... so that, at least to a native English speaker it is more natural to follow the order that Tyrannosaurus Alphabeticus suggests when referring to "men and women".)))) ... Mr. King suggests not only that a book writes itself, but that the characters of the book will, if you listen to them, tell you what to write about them.
I must confess in the most apoplectic and embarrassed fashion that when I first read this concept in Mr. King's "On Writing", like (probably) most people I thought something like: "Oh, Sure, Mr. Rich Pants, that's easy for you to say, sitting in the lap of luxury, wealthy and famous beyond need. Yep, you say that the characters speak for themselves, but what you really mean is that you are sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo innate smart and internally organized that you have a kind of 'internal outline' for your stories that emerges as you write them. But, it was there all along. And you are just (disingenously) trying to get us no-talented schnooks to realize this by putting forth some kind of metaphysical touchy-feely explanation for our abject inability to conjure up the kind of stories that are actually worth reading."
Maybe it was just me who thought something along these lines to explain my own inability to write A STORY. But, I thought, oh, sure, Stephen King (and now Jance, Parker and Rollins) 'whispers' stories from the dark nether regions of the unintelligible morse-like code which feeds into his skull from the universe, but what about the rest of us who don't have that kind of connection to the galaxy? And, is this how Shakespeare did it? How does anyone do it? How does anyone write a good story.
They find it. And, you, dear reader, will find your story. That, I think, is not really the hard part. We all have stories, and they are all fascinating in their own ways. Properly addressed, Hollywood Producers would pay every last one of us millions of dollars for the 'story of our lives', or for the 'story of how Xerxes the Croatian Giant fell in Love with and Married the President of the United States'. At least they would if we could tell them our story, tell them the story. And, to try to tie this all up, the reason that a LOT of us cannot tell a story is because of that damnable lie that we were told in school (at least in the schools I attended in the "mid-Western" State of Oklahoma, and elsewhere) that we can't write anything without, first, having a good OUTLINE!!!
A variant on this misinformation is the old saw 'If you know it, you can say what you know.' Utter bullshit. Under which I labored like a robotic drone for about the last 45 years of my life. In my freshman year in college -- I had the good fortune to be given a scholarship to a small catholic college in Los Angeles, known as Loyola-Marymount University, without which I would have had to suffer the damnable fate of living at home with my mother and younger sister, in Sunnyvale, California, while I attended De Anza junior college. Who knows, perhaps that would have been the better outcome. But, as luck would have it, I had a pretty high GPA in high school, and when, near the end of my senior year in high-school, I woke up and found myself with no place to go AWAY to to college, I panicked and applied to Loyola-Marymount in Los Angeles. HOW WAS I TO KNOW that my English teacher at L-M would impart to me the singularly most damaging and stultifying mis-conception about learning and life in general? How was I to know that my impetus would cut to the quick, since, in point of fact, it was, and is, virtually impossible for me (and for most people) to "say" most of what they know? HOW WAS I TO KNOW???
But, that is what she did. And, while I don't remember her name, I do remember that she was a slight, somewhat sexy (at least to a horny 19 year old), dark haired, fair skinned maiden, who, upon reading my excuse on an exam for not having studied ("I know, but I just can't express it.") stated matter-of-factly "If you know something, you can say what you know."
I was stunned. I realized how stupid I was, because I couldn't say most of what I (thought) I knew. I was terrible as expressing myself; and I was angry as this vixen for showing me what a fraud I was. But, my anger did not turn in to moral outrage and that did not turn into a dedication to proving her wrong. It did not motivate me to do anything, except to give up and believe the idiocy of "I can't put it into words, so I don't know it."
Sheer idiocy.
Take riding a bicycle, for example. It is SUPREMELY difficult to 'explain' or 'say' how to ride a bike. And, in point of fact, parents who try to 'explain' how to ride a bike to their children usually wind up with children with broken limbs and skinned knees from falling off their bikes while trying to 'think' about how to ride it. There ARE things about riding a bike that you CAN explain, like you need to sit on the seat, you need to pedal to keep the bicycle moving, and you need to keep your balance. But, beyond these trivally truisms, learning to ride a bike will not result in you learning to explain how it is that you keep your balance like a gyroscope. Physicist can explain that, in THEIR language. But you probably cannot, and it would be a waste of your time to try.
In actual fact, some things, indeed almost all things of value, cannot be (easily) reduced to a clear and precise concatenation of agreed upon terms. It is possible, with some practice, and learning to ignore all of the psycho-babble of pseudo intellectuals masquerading as your friend to make your feel inadequate because you do not understand their brand of 'psycho-speak', to know to a certainty what the person across the table from you intends to do next (say in a negotiation to buy a car); and the fact that you cannot EXPLAIN how you know that Mary is going to ask you to marry her, does not mean that you don't know it; and it does not mean that it is 'just a hunch'. it just means that there are some forms of knowledge (indeed most of them) which are not readily susceptible to being written down in clear and precise, premise, premise, premise, conclusion style in the King's English (for example).
What this all means is really just this. Writing is about the art ... and it is an art ... of communicating the stories you find within you to others. Writing is not easy, because uncovering, and finding your own stories is not easy. Writing, like becoming a lawyer, brick-layer, mother, father, teacher, astronaut or banker, is not easy because it requires that we pay close attention to the quality of our communication to and with others.
You know how some people, no matter what they do, seem to have a certain 'style' about them that sets them apart? Cooks? Grocers? Baristas? Laundresses? Everything which can be done, can be done with style and with an attention to the quality of communication which the do-er brings to the job.
Mr. King, Mrs. Jance, Mr. Parker and Mr. Rollins are good at telling stories. And, so are you. You just need to find your story.
13 March 2018, Scott Weible
Outlining -- or the imagined necessity to be able to do it in order to "be" a "good writer" -- is, also, me thinks, the one evil, perverted, pernicious "stop" which has caused more promising writers to lie down their pens, pencils, typewriters or keyboards than any single other cause in the history of the entire galaxy.
I am not saying that an "outline" is not a good thing for certain purposes, none of which have the slightest thing to do with the quality of one's writing. It is good if you need an organizational structure to display to your law school teachers so that they will think that, by displaying a talent for organization, you are similarly displaying a talent for legal acumen, understanding and ability. it is good to be able to outline if you are writing a governmental pamphlet on 'How To Obtain A Medicare Card Before You Die From Waiting For It To Arrive" -- yet it is clear that apparently none of the writers of governmental pamphlets that deal with how to do something to get something the government provides have acquainted themselves with the fine points of outlining. And, outlining MAY be important if you have a brilliant idea for the next 'iPhone' and you want to someone to bankroll you for its research and production.
But, I now have it on the excellent authority of J. A. Jance, T. Jefferson Parker, and James Rollins (aka James Paul Czajkowski) ... and, if I read him right, Mr. Stephen King, also, that 'outlining', per se, is mostly something that writers do to show their editors and book-publishers just enough information to persuade them to pay the writer an advance against the eventual royalties. Yet, time, after time, after time, these authors regale us with stories about book publishers, who, having given an advance based upon some outline, receive a rather much different book than the outline promised. From a logistical standpoint, for a writer, this is problematic only if the eventual 'product' of the outline sucks.
Assuming, however that the eventual book does not suck -- and let's say in Mr. Stephen King's case -- not only does the manuscript not suck, but it is fabulous, generates world-wide acclaim and bunches of money for the author and the publisher, then one might naturally want to ask what the purpose of the outline ever was, and do "real" authors use them? And, if so, why? And, if not, why not?
Well, as I understand what J.A. Jance, T. Jefferson Parker, and James Rollins all three said when they spoke at the 2018 Tucson Festival of Books in the UA Mall Tent at 1:30 p.m. on the afternoon of March 10, 2018, it turns out that, basically, books write themselves -- at least once you have an idea that is worth writing about, and you are capable of a somewhat more than rudimentary application of the standard tools of writing to that particular idea. And, of course, you can't be lazy and shiftless, because writing, like all jobs does not do itself. True, a book might 'reveal itself' to you, but YOU still have to write it down. And, in a fashion such that it makes sense to everyone else, and not just you in your dreams.
Interestingly enough -- not that I would be arrogant enough to speak for a great writer like Stephoen King -- I'd wager that Mr. King would agree with me. In fact, if you take the time to read his little book (and it is a little book) "On Writing", you'll see that, like Jance, Parker and Rollins (they are only in this order because, as the Moderator said, we are the handmaidens of that tyranny knowns in erudite circles as the Alphabet) ... ((((Hmm. In this day and age, one wonders if someone will discover a sexist, anti-feminist, sexually discriminatory original purpose for calling men "men" and women "women" ... so that, at least to a native English speaker it is more natural to follow the order that Tyrannosaurus Alphabeticus suggests when referring to "men and women".)))) ... Mr. King suggests not only that a book writes itself, but that the characters of the book will, if you listen to them, tell you what to write about them.
I must confess in the most apoplectic and embarrassed fashion that when I first read this concept in Mr. King's "On Writing", like (probably) most people I thought something like: "Oh, Sure, Mr. Rich Pants, that's easy for you to say, sitting in the lap of luxury, wealthy and famous beyond need. Yep, you say that the characters speak for themselves, but what you really mean is that you are sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo innate smart and internally organized that you have a kind of 'internal outline' for your stories that emerges as you write them. But, it was there all along. And you are just (disingenously) trying to get us no-talented schnooks to realize this by putting forth some kind of metaphysical touchy-feely explanation for our abject inability to conjure up the kind of stories that are actually worth reading."
Maybe it was just me who thought something along these lines to explain my own inability to write A STORY. But, I thought, oh, sure, Stephen King (and now Jance, Parker and Rollins) 'whispers' stories from the dark nether regions of the unintelligible morse-like code which feeds into his skull from the universe, but what about the rest of us who don't have that kind of connection to the galaxy? And, is this how Shakespeare did it? How does anyone do it? How does anyone write a good story.
They find it. And, you, dear reader, will find your story. That, I think, is not really the hard part. We all have stories, and they are all fascinating in their own ways. Properly addressed, Hollywood Producers would pay every last one of us millions of dollars for the 'story of our lives', or for the 'story of how Xerxes the Croatian Giant fell in Love with and Married the President of the United States'. At least they would if we could tell them our story, tell them the story. And, to try to tie this all up, the reason that a LOT of us cannot tell a story is because of that damnable lie that we were told in school (at least in the schools I attended in the "mid-Western" State of Oklahoma, and elsewhere) that we can't write anything without, first, having a good OUTLINE!!!
A variant on this misinformation is the old saw 'If you know it, you can say what you know.' Utter bullshit. Under which I labored like a robotic drone for about the last 45 years of my life. In my freshman year in college -- I had the good fortune to be given a scholarship to a small catholic college in Los Angeles, known as Loyola-Marymount University, without which I would have had to suffer the damnable fate of living at home with my mother and younger sister, in Sunnyvale, California, while I attended De Anza junior college. Who knows, perhaps that would have been the better outcome. But, as luck would have it, I had a pretty high GPA in high school, and when, near the end of my senior year in high-school, I woke up and found myself with no place to go AWAY to to college, I panicked and applied to Loyola-Marymount in Los Angeles. HOW WAS I TO KNOW that my English teacher at L-M would impart to me the singularly most damaging and stultifying mis-conception about learning and life in general? How was I to know that my impetus would cut to the quick, since, in point of fact, it was, and is, virtually impossible for me (and for most people) to "say" most of what they know? HOW WAS I TO KNOW???
But, that is what she did. And, while I don't remember her name, I do remember that she was a slight, somewhat sexy (at least to a horny 19 year old), dark haired, fair skinned maiden, who, upon reading my excuse on an exam for not having studied ("I know, but I just can't express it.") stated matter-of-factly "If you know something, you can say what you know."
I was stunned. I realized how stupid I was, because I couldn't say most of what I (thought) I knew. I was terrible as expressing myself; and I was angry as this vixen for showing me what a fraud I was. But, my anger did not turn in to moral outrage and that did not turn into a dedication to proving her wrong. It did not motivate me to do anything, except to give up and believe the idiocy of "I can't put it into words, so I don't know it."
Sheer idiocy.
Take riding a bicycle, for example. It is SUPREMELY difficult to 'explain' or 'say' how to ride a bike. And, in point of fact, parents who try to 'explain' how to ride a bike to their children usually wind up with children with broken limbs and skinned knees from falling off their bikes while trying to 'think' about how to ride it. There ARE things about riding a bike that you CAN explain, like you need to sit on the seat, you need to pedal to keep the bicycle moving, and you need to keep your balance. But, beyond these trivally truisms, learning to ride a bike will not result in you learning to explain how it is that you keep your balance like a gyroscope. Physicist can explain that, in THEIR language. But you probably cannot, and it would be a waste of your time to try.
In actual fact, some things, indeed almost all things of value, cannot be (easily) reduced to a clear and precise concatenation of agreed upon terms. It is possible, with some practice, and learning to ignore all of the psycho-babble of pseudo intellectuals masquerading as your friend to make your feel inadequate because you do not understand their brand of 'psycho-speak', to know to a certainty what the person across the table from you intends to do next (say in a negotiation to buy a car); and the fact that you cannot EXPLAIN how you know that Mary is going to ask you to marry her, does not mean that you don't know it; and it does not mean that it is 'just a hunch'. it just means that there are some forms of knowledge (indeed most of them) which are not readily susceptible to being written down in clear and precise, premise, premise, premise, conclusion style in the King's English (for example).
What this all means is really just this. Writing is about the art ... and it is an art ... of communicating the stories you find within you to others. Writing is not easy, because uncovering, and finding your own stories is not easy. Writing, like becoming a lawyer, brick-layer, mother, father, teacher, astronaut or banker, is not easy because it requires that we pay close attention to the quality of our communication to and with others.
You know how some people, no matter what they do, seem to have a certain 'style' about them that sets them apart? Cooks? Grocers? Baristas? Laundresses? Everything which can be done, can be done with style and with an attention to the quality of communication which the do-er brings to the job.
Mr. King, Mrs. Jance, Mr. Parker and Mr. Rollins are good at telling stories. And, so are you. You just need to find your story.
13 March 2018, Scott Weible
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