Never read great writers

blacbird said:

I made the error of reading an Ursula LeGuin book (Tales of Earthsea) tonight. Never in the entire history of our galaxy can I even fantasize about being able to write that well, never never never. Ever.

caw

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I feel that way about all my favorite authors. No way will I ever be able to compete. But LeGuin and others like her are why I want to write in the first place. She's inspiration, not competition.

I actually found myself avoiding books by Gene Wolfe, because he wrote about a lot of stuff that interested me -- and wrote it way, way better than I thought I ever could. I resented his being so good.

But -- I'm not Gene Wolfe, and he isn't me. There are so many variable factors involved in the qualities of a written work -- and even if you exhaustively analyze it by every possible objective standard, there'll still be the simple fact that everybody has their own taste. I'll never be a great writer, but I hope to be a competent one, and to write stuff that at least some readers connect with and enjoy.

There are a million and one writers who are far better than I will ever be just as there are those whose bottoms I kick with my writing.

So what, though? My focus is writing my stories as well as I can and polishing them before subbing. If I start thinking I'll never be as good as so and so and focusing on that, I won't get anywhere.

mirandashell said:

Really bad writing can be quite entertaining though. Like... well, I shouldn't say. But I'm sure we all have books that we've read and made a face like this:



then this:



then finished the book just to see if it could possibly get any worse.....



LOL!

But yeah, the good stuff is best. Gives you something to work towards.

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A certain book that sounds like A Fetcher in the Dye made me: then then then
BUT. At least now I can say that I have read it.

If it's any comfort to those of you despairing when reading great writers, the very greats themselves were hardly immune to this feeling. I believe, although I don't have source for this, that Ernest Hemingway himself once said that when he first read "Crime and Punishment" by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, he despaired because he knew that he would never be able to write a novel of such calibre. So don't fret and instead use that sense of awe constuctively. Turn to these greats like the muses of ancient times. Every great writer and storyteller stood on the shoulders of those who came before him.

To quote the 7th grade science teacher that I disliked who also disliked me: "There's always going to be someone better than you."

Bad writing can give you a confidence boost though. "I can do better than that."

Good writing can be scary sometimes. I still haven't finished Birdsong because I became insanely jealous of Faulks' prose. It happens to us all, right? But I have my own story to write and my own writing lessons to absorb.

I quite liked Fetcher in the Dye......

ccarver30 said:

A certain book that sounds like A Fetcher in the Dye made me: then then then
BUT. At least now I can say that I have read it.

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There is a certain roaring twenties novel about old money I had this reaction to.
On a completely seperate note: I just realized this is my 200th post.

Jamesaritchie said:

You've never even hear dof these writers, but you judge their worth based on the name they have? Ummm, yeah, that makes sense. If you can find a writer more entertaining than Le Guin, send me the name. That's a writer I want to read.

Really, though. You've never even heard of Ursula K. Le Guin? How long did that coma last, anyway?

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I went to Yale.

I went to Harvard.

I never heard of Ursula K. Le Guin.

Two of those three statements are false.

My point is, some people are well read, some aren't. Some remember names, some don't. Respect your fellow writer is a two-way street, that's all I'm sayin'.

I use great writers as inspiration. Like, there's the bar and keep working until you meet it. Reading crappy fiction is harder because I always feel like why not meeee!

kkbe said:

Now, onto you, Blacbird. You wrote your post tongue-in-cheek, right? Because I can't believe you'd actually and actively read crap so you can feel better about your own stuff. It's counterproductive, I think.

You were joking. I know you were.

In my previous life I was an artist. I took a class in sculpture and when I went to the Detroit Institute of Arts, I was drawn to Rodin. I could almost see his fingertips pushing into the clay, feel his nails raking though it, molding it into something magnificent. I wanted to channel some of that into my own art. I saw a painting by Bouguereau, children outside and he painted dirt on the bottoms of their feet, it blew me away, the exquisitness of it, the attention to such a minute detail, the way he lay paint on canvas, such a delicate touch; lovingly, thoughtfully, precise.

To not avail yourself to the best of others seems self-defeating. How can you know what 'great writing' looks like if you never allow yourself to see it?

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Gotta disagree. If you only study the masters works, and only focus on the Davids, Little Mermaids Pieta and Venus de Milo, you fail to notice all the clay ashtrays and ceramic stick figures out there, and if you don't craft a masterpiece, you grow disenchanted and put down your chisel and wash the dust off your hands when you don't reach the pinnacle.

And, before I continue, I am NOT singling out any authors. I am speaking from a strictly hypothetical position:

While one should read the great writers, which is a highly subjective group, but nonetheless they exist for each genre, one should also read the crap in their genre. Why? Because those are our ceramic ashtrays and porcelain stick figures with round boobs.

If they can get a market, what is to stop those who are better?

Read what you enjoy, enjoy what you read, and remember that, no matter how badly we think we're doing, there's always someone out there who has been published that makes us scratch our head.

And...truth be told? There's a sort of perverse pleasure to dive into a pure piece of fiction that is mindnumbingly silly and just fun to read.

Just turn the brain off and hang on for dear life.

Hold on, benluby, I didn't say we should seek out the best, exclusive of everything else. I said, how can you know what the best is if you've never seen it? I wouldn't suggest one read only the classics, look only at Michaelangelo's sculptures, seek only photography by people like Ansel Adams. I wouldn't want to stay only at 5-star hotels, drive only million dollar cars.

You're right, there's a lot to be said for the imperfect. The crap. Some of my happiest times have been spent sleeping under the stars in a ratty old sleeping bag. My most fun car trip was in a crap purple Matador that threw some rods in San Diego and stranded us for a week in a roach-infested house with three divorced Navy guys. Perfection is something to aspire to, imperfection is the spice of life.

I think blacbird's post was making a point. So was I.

And so are you, I know. I don't think we're at cross purposes, benluby.

kkbe said:

Hold on, benluby, I didn't say seek out the best exclusively. I said, how can you know what the best is if you've never seen it. I wouldn't suggest one only read the classics, look only at Michaelangelo's sculptures, seek only photography by people like Ansel Adams. I wouldn't want to only stay at 5-star hotels, only drive million dollar cars.

You're right, there's a lot to be said for the imperfect. The crap. Some of my happiest times have been spent sleeping under the stars in a ratty old sleeping bag. My most fun car trip was in a crap purple Matador that threw some rods in San Diego and stranded us for a week in a roach-infested house with three divorced Navy guys. Perfection is something to aspire to, imperfection is spice of life.

I think blacbird's post was making a point. So was I.

And so are you, I know. I don't think we're at cross purposes, benluby.

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I stand corrected kkbe. I misunderstood your post, and was rather surprised by what I thought it meant.

benluby: I stand corrected kkbe. I misunderstood your post, and was rather surprised by what I thought it meant.

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Eek. maybe I wasn't clear enough. I have to watch that.

You know it's funny, I read a book the other day, and when I finished, I wanted to cry, because I will never, ever in a million years be able to write like this author. She was amazing.

Then I read the book a second time, and parts of it three and four times. I studied her craft. I studied the way she put words together, and the way she shaped her plot, and then I bought another book of hers and read it and did the same.

I realize I will never write like this author, our voices are completely different, we write different types of stories. BUT there were tons of things I could learn from the way she crafted her stories, and that's fantastic.

VanessaNorth said:

You know it's funny, I read a book the other day, and when I finished, I wanted to cry, because I will never, ever in a million years be able to write like this author. She was amazing.

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Do you mind saying what book? I'm always eager to find more authors like that . . .

Jamesaritchie said:

I really don't find very much bad published writing. I find writing I love, writing I like, and writing I hate, but very, very little of it is actually bad.

Only a few, like Ray Bradbury, actually intimidate me to the point of wanting to find another profession.

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We're opposites as regards to Bradbury and Le Guin. I loved Bradbury, found him inspirational, wanted to write like that. I read only one Le Guin book and decided she'd done too good a job for me: her aliens were so alien I couldn't understand their motivations, reactions or thinking processes. (Yes, I do understand the lack is on my end, not on hers, and did so even then.)

Like you, though, I haven't found a lot of truly bad writing in published fiction. It may not appeal to me, but that doesn't mean it's bad.

^ Apply that lesson to writing too.

Among the group of illustrators I occasionally pal around with at conventions, there is what's known as the "I-Can't-Paint" face.

This is the face you make when you stand in front of art that is so goddamn much better than you will ever achieve that you know, right down to the core of the marrow inside your left pinkie toe, that you are a talentless hack and should throw your paintbrushes into the nearest lake.

(In my case this involves wide eyes, slightly tensed lower eyelids, right hand clenched in hair on top of head, lower lip wibbling slightly, fist clutched to chin optional. Your mileage may vary, but you can almost always tell when somebody's makin' the face.)

A friend of mine recounts the tale of having attended a very large convention and visiting the art show, where he found Michael Whelan, who was top of the S/F cover field at the time, standing in front of a painting by James Gurney (of Dinotopia fame) and making the "I-Can't-Paint" face.

Two bays down, James Gurney was standing in front of a Michael Whelan painting making the exact same face.

So....y'know.

RedWombat said:

A friend of mine recounts the tale of having attended a very large convention and visiting the art show, where he found Michael Whelan, who was top of the S/F cover field at the time, standing in front of a painting by James Gurney (of Dinotopia fame) and making the "I-Can't-Paint" face.

Two bays down, James Gurney was standing in front of a Michael Whelan painting making the exact same face.

So....y'know.

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This is perhaps dead on right. I think as artists, be it with the written word, paint, clay or a welding gun, the day we think we're all that and a bag of chips (with dip) is the day we should give up.
We do the best we can with what we have and let the readers determine just how damned good or bad we are.

Sorry...but I don't get the writer envy stuff. I write beautiful writing because it lifts me higher. I can't be envious of the things that make my heart sing.

RedWombat said:

Among the group of illustrators I occasionally pal around with at conventions, there is what's known as the "I-Can't-Paint" face.

This is the face you make when you stand in front of art that is so goddamn much better than you will ever achieve that you know, right down to the core of the marrow inside your left pinkie toe, that you are a talentless hack and should throw your paintbrushes into the nearest lake.

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Fuckin' Caravaggio.

(and then I stopped painting)

(...of course I probably never had the patience for painting to begin with but it's still Caravaggio's fault)

I actually didn't like The Wizard of Earthsea, but I was like nine when I read it so I don't remember why. I think I really liked Peter Benchley at the time. Or maybe that was the Sherlock Holmes phase? Hrm. Hard to keep track of my literary phases.

I do get envious. I read a manuscript recently that had my brain all wrenched around itself because it had a particularly awesomely brilliantly marvelously done villain and a totally adorable love story. But after the enviousness there's a weird surge of motivation. It doesn't last very long, unfortunately, but I have this feeling of "goddamn it THIS IS WHAT THE KEYBOARD IS CAPABLE OF so I'mma MAKE it my BITCH."

Or something.

I only get despondent afterwards, when I fail to actually make the keyboard my bitch But it's because I'm failing in my own right, not because I'm doing it different...if that makes sense.

I get it. There are writers whose words motivate me to work harder, be more thoughtful; others where I've closed the book wondering why I bother, convinced I should give up.

On the other hand, I was once in a critique group where someone responded to my (?!) writing the same way. Sent me into a panic, I couldn't write anything for weeks.

Rule Number One: Never Compare Yourself to Other Artists. I know, I know. I almost deleted my entire MS after reading Cloud Atlas. But it'll only bring you down.