As a new writer I have the grand view of all those who have come before me. I get to learn from them. Hopefully the good habits stick and the bad ones fade away. Apparently Herman Melville only wrote when he was drunk. Take that information as an example. While reading Moby Dick you can tell that the writer was sauced. It’s a very difficult book to read. The book is more rewarding as a collection of memories than as an obstacle in your present purview. Possibly it would be easier to read if the reader was sauced. This is unfair really, since Melville isn’t here to defend himself. Well, and if he was he’d find it mighty difficult to beat me. I’d club him over the head with his own bottle before he could cry, “Foul weather barnacles!” And that is another thing that I am learning from all of the currently not deceased writers: that insults are thrown around almost too casually. However, the benefit I see of this internet-version of the dozens is that we writers can quickly encourage some automatic, reflex criticism. We can put our wits out there and shove them sharpened in the ribs of any common web pedestrian and make them shout something like, “You hack!”
Picture that.
It’s like testing the sharpness of your Samurai sword on one of the Emperor’s kin and then challenging him to identify the limb removed with perfect accuracy before you give it back. Or maybe like putting…well never mind that, you can’t know all my secrets.
Isn’t it interesting that you can witness all manner of showdowns in the nebulous forums of the web, but the bullets are only words? Do words hurt you, or make you stronger? I’m sure there are many variables to take in to account for a correct answer to that question. In the sense of a writer, gathering the tools of the trade in a vocabulary, I would think that could only conclude in strength. That is probably only true in specific cases. It’s obvious that many people have words but don’t know how to use them. It really doesn’t matter what grandiose and flowery scientific words you have in your cranial cavity if you can’t put them together in a way people can understand. That has been made evident to me by the people who try to out-word each other, and only succeed in making fools of themselves. When they shove a string of words together, and half the words are in an ancient unused tongue, all with the intent of proving how intellectual they are, they usually end up proving the opposite. Really, if you can’t describe the concept to someone who knows very little, then you don’t know the concept yourself.
And that brings me full circle to my initial statement: I have a grand view from here. So do many other budding artists and writers. We are watching you old-timers. We’re absorbing the words you use as well as the stresses and the inflections you use to deliver them. So keep it straight, and make it worth our while, or we’ll konk you over the head with your own bottle, you lousy souse.
Alien Perception 