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Another book, Mr. Gibbon? Scribble, scribble, scribble, Mr. Gibbon?
--- George III
I have never been a particularly good writer. I did poorly enough on my
English achievement test that as an undergraduate, I was required to take
the remedial English course. Even then, between sloth and impatience, I
have only recently become concerned enough about my writing to do
something about it.
The only way to become any good at writing is to read and write A LOT.
But that is not really enough: you need feedback on your writing, and
perhaps on your reading. One way to get feedback is to join a writer's
group: this would be a group of people that meet periodically (once a
month?) and critique each other's work. These are sort of like self-paced,
low-intensity writing classes: if you are lucky enough to have someone
competent in the group (always something to check) it can be helpful to
get feedback. Of course, you need a thick skin: fewer things are more
upsetting to a fragile ego than the sight of some editor slashing at one's
immortal words with a blue pencil. But there are two benefits:
- You get into the habit of writing something for the group: if
you never submit anything, you wind up feeling a little out of place.
And this is one of the points: the only way to learn to write is to
write regularly, and one way to get into the habit of writing regularly
is to have recurrent deadlines.
- You get feedback. It is amazing the things that other people see
that you don't see. Also you get the chance to look at other people's
work critically, and that gives you a chance to look at the good and bad
of writing.
I have joined two local writer's groups in Tampa:
- The Life Long
Writers, which is sponsored by the USF Life Long Learning
program. This meets en masse on the third Wednesday of each month. Each
meeting is two hours long, and has a guest speak for perhaps half an
hour, and then participants present their own short (up to about 600
words) works for mass critique.
- The Tampa
Writer's Alliance is more structured, with a monthly meeting
featuring a guest, and then monthly meetings of special groups on
poetry, prose, etc.
I am the editor of the Life Long Writers' Newsletter,
with appears now appears twice a year. (Members of the Life Long Writers
are invited to submit short works to me for the newsletter.) In each
issue, I write a column on some aspect of writing. These columns are
called Pointing at the Moon (after the Zen ko'an of the Sixth
Patriarch HuiNeng, who said that confusing a word with the word's meaning
is like confusing a finger pointing at the Moon with the Moon itself).
Here are the columns:
- June, 2002: The
Poem in my Head. (Note: mathematicians have experienced a similar
phenomenon: the theorem in the head. I have developed a similar
skepticism about such heady theorems.)
- November, 2002: Bring
Your Bad Poetry. If you are going to be a writer, you are going
to have to write.
- June, 2003:
Clarity and Difficulty. Some literature is clear, and some ...
Reward Effort.
- June, 2003:
The New World of the WWW. It's a new world, with dangers and
opportunity.
And I have been published some poetry:
I encourage people to find some way of
self-expression, be it writing, painting, planting gardens, playing a
tuba, or running for public office. We are primates, and primates need to
express themselves.
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