- Anne Ward Jamieson: “A while back there was an op-ed columnist whose work I followed in the newspaper both for what she had to say and how well she said it. She was a single mother. Then, inexplicably, the quality of her columns seemed to take a disappointing dip. But I read on and, one day, she mentioned being recently married. I was instantly convinced that explained her poor performance. I know it could have been because she was very very busy or very very happy or both or something else entirely but my immediate take on it was that she had someone she shared her inner thoughts with, someone to talk to, someone whose attention obviated the need to spill her feelings to the general public.”
Further Discussion:
1. Is this what writing is/writers do, write in order to find attention or spill inner thoughts that aren't otherwise shared? 1a. If 1) is true then it holds that the entirety of it is true, that writing is as much in order to find attention as to spill inner thoughts; otherwise a diary would suffice, and not a blog, column, or otherwise publicly posted work. Do you feel this is true for you? Are we all just seeking attention? 2. The woman who wrote this is a single parent. Knowing that, does that affect your interpretation of her interpretation of the events she describes at all? RANT AHEAD "Have you tried acting, dear boy?" - Laurence Olivier to Dustin Hoffman True confession: I hate poetry. Not all poetry, just vast swaths of it. Particularly modern poetry, because there's an awful lot of changing up the whitespace so that simple phrases end up forcibly profound. "So much depends upon a red wheelbarrow glazed with rainwater next to the white chickens." - some farmer so much depends upon a red wheel barrow glazed with rain water beside the white chickens. - some fucking legend of poetry I was forced to read like six times Know who Emily Dickenson was? A housebound crazyperson spinster. Hope is the thing with feathers indeed. Put that shit on needlepoint. Know who Bruce Dickenson was? Riding through dust clouds and barren wastes Galloping hard on the plains Chasing the redskins back to their holes Fighting them at their own game Murder for freedom the stab in the back Women and children are cowards attack The former? I had to write papers on. The latter? I got in trouble for wearing t-shirts celebrating. Know who I always tried to pick when we had to do something about a "poet?" Rudyard Fucking Kipling. Know why we never discussed Kipling in English class? 'cuz for some fucking reason he wasn't considered a poet. Why? Probably because he sold stuff while he was alive, rather than dumping it all in a spider hole somewhere for his heirs to find.
All That To Say When some fucking vanity press never-heard-of-you person decides a person's writing has changed because they're no longer over-sharing with the public for glory, it says a lot more about the speaker than the spoken of. Art is the knack of making something from nothing and selling it. - Frank Zappa I write science fiction for a living and have seven mouths to feed. I take a lot of speed. - Philip K. Dick, when asked how he was so prolific Look. It's a job. You're getting paid for translating the shit in your head into shit on the page. If it's a periodical, you're probably getting paid per word. I don't write so that I can feel better about myself, I write because I've been paid non-negligible sums to do it, and because I'm better at it than my friends. If you need to write for therapy, you have no business writing for money. Never let your well-being depend on your ill health. I recognize that "poet" is so very rarely a job. I also recognize that this is due in no small part to my opinion on poetry being common. And I have no truck with poets who write poetry poetically to share with other poets. So long as I'm not required to call it profound, I don't give a flying fuck. But anybody who can write and call it "poetry" needs to STFU about the motivations of writers they've never met.The pink dot of a woman pirouetting
on his head has toppled off like a sequin
cut loose from its thread.
Bruce also flies huge aeroplanes, yo. (And makes insane films about insane Crowleyan magick rituals.) The best poetry I ever heard was spoken by a Scottish poet as an example of how casual true poetry sounds when delivered correctly, which ended up being him half way through the second verse of some Kipling before I realised what was going on because he wasn't trying to lean on the emphasis and scansion like a crippled geriatric on a walking cane.
bunglerd makes an interesting point about how Anne Jamieson might read. At one point I had many friends whose company I enjoyed. Then I had one friend whose company I enjoyed more and I spent less and less time with my other friends. Maybe writing is like that. Maybe the newly married writer no longer cares about her column and is writing something else. Maybe this, maybe that. It doesn't matter. Finding Attention I like what b_b said below. The word "attention" puts a somewhat negative spin on the process of enjoying recognition and feedback. Writing might be about finding attention or spilling inner thoughts. Those are not bad things, but that is not why I write. In some cases, as kleinbl00 says "it's a job." Writing -- the wonderful amazing process of being able to write, to develop ideas, to express thoughts, to clarify, to delineate, to communicate in symbols across a page or a screen or a tablet or a wall -- is (as you well know, refugee) many other things as well. As for attention-seeking: I know for sure when I started my blog in July 2011 that it was not attention-seeking because I did not send it out to my 200 closest friends or to anyone. It wasn't about spilling inner thoughts either. It was about putting into record stories, ideas, and questions that I had been thinking about and discussing for a long time. I started, though, to distract myself from some difficult problems (which have never been mentioned in my blog). In the process of distracting myself, I also learned a great deal about writing and blogging and have a great deal more to learn. In fact, the more one writes, the more one learns - so whether one writes to connect with others, to understand one's self, to do a job, or any other reason . . . the more you write, the more you learn and that's a good reason, in my opinion, to keep writing.you read different things for different parts of yourself.
From here, I have no idea if the formerly single mom's writing actually changed. Maybe Ms Jamieson changed. It seems obvious that when our lives change, our writing changes, our friendships change, our needs to create or not create change.
Having children does interesting things to your perspective. I sat with my 1 month old son the other day, talking to him in that sing/songy voice that new parents use (It's proven that the high-to-low inflections in that type of voice is more noticeable and appealing to infants) and I started telling him what I wished for him. The one thing I really wished for him was that he have an outlet for his emotions. I should clarify and say that I wished that he had a positive and constructive outlet for his emotions. -To me, this is what writing and art is for. I know people are different, my guess is that kleinbl00 wouldn't say he writes because it's an "outlet for his emotions," [(-see "why do you write" podcast for clarification)](1. Is this what writing is/writers do, write in order to find attention or spill inner thoughts that aren't otherwise shared?
-I wrote this song in like.. ten minutes. To say I "wrote it" is almost misleading as I feel I had nothing to do with it. It just happened. I'm still learning about what the hell those lyrics meant/mean. So yeah, I suppose I spill "inner thoughts" with my writing. I hope that my kids someday will have something similar in their lives to help them through.
Attention seeking is a superficial reading of what writers do (sorry for the terrible pun). My 5 year old niece is an attention seeker, and yet I find myself supremely uninterested in her whining for the most part. Haruki Murakami (for example, since he's one of my fav's), may or may not be an attention seeker, but he can hold my interest for hours. I think the main thing that writers do is to reflect on the world as they see it, and then to put their thoughts out there in order to illicit response from their readers. I'm not sure I would qualify that as attention seeking, so to speak. I do professional science writing, and although I do love it when people contact me with questions about my work, I wouldn't say that my motivation is to get attention specifically. But then, science isn't typically what we're talking about when we talk about writers. I've done a tiny bit of blog writing, and I can say that my main motivation was to make a public critique of what I thought were misconceptions about the way the mind and brain work. Again, loved getting feedback and discussing the work, but wouldn't say that I was attention seeking. On Hubski, I often write long comments that I hope get discussions started, and I'm usually disappointed when I don't receive any replies to a controversial comment, as I like being challenged by other educated people. In some sense, i suppose that is attention seeking, since I really do want people to notice, to agree or disagree, and to tell me why. If one's primary motivation for writing is personal therapy, then I suppose finding a spouse to confide in probably would make one less prolific. However, I think writers write for many reasons, among them personal growth, making a contribution to the world's body of knowledge (or art), affecting change, etc. On the spectrum of artists, the writers I've known rank well above pretty much every other group in the humility category.
I would rather share with strangers than a significant other but then all my relationships suck. EDIT: sorry that comment really isn't up to par but I'm so fucking hungry and I haven't written much in a long time which is very sad. George Orwell stopped writing from the ages of 18 to 25 so he could live and become his own subject matter and it worked out for him unfortunately I don't think I'm living quite like he did.
That seems too simple. After all, it's a newspaper -- not a blog. That means someone has to edit the copy before it hits the presses. Perhaps there was also a new editor that wasn't willing to pick the right fights with the author.
I would agree with delta. I write to make the jumble of thoughts in my head move into an area where it can be formed into cohesiveness. But depending on what it is, I also write to be acknowledged, in a way. By that I mean, I aim to create discussion about a topic I'm thinking about. But one thing I've learned to improve my writing is to write for myself, first. I find that I can be bogged down by worry of what other people think about my writing/opinions. By writing for myself, I can also write honestly, which I believe is an important thing to me.
I think it's an interesting idea that all commenters on Hubksi are writers. We all express our views through our words, and it's pretty damn beautiful. You should write for yourself first, then open that writing up to the public. That's how you'll make waves.
1. If a writer isn't looking to garner attention, then it's a hobby. There's nothing wrong with getting attention. The fault lies in how you seek it. 1a. It's also creation. We each have the opportunity to synthesize the human experience in a way that no one can. To the degree that we demonstrate that to be true, it's all the more interesting for everyone else. 2. No. Or maybe yes, but it's not interesting to me. It sounds like she is working through something, but it could just be an observation.
Professional writers are paid to write. They are not some kind of mystical hermits living a cave, every so often bestowing us with rare pearls. You (Anne Jamiseon) are not a special disciple. You are just a reader. No. We're paying the bills. Sometimes we loathe having to write about certain things, but we still do it, because we are professional writers. You mean the woman (Anne Jamieson?) who is criticising the unnamed columnist? No, it doesn't affect my opinion that she sound like a pretentious, self-entitled arse.1. Is this what writing is/writers do, write in order to find attention or spill inner thoughts that aren't otherwise shared?
1a. If 1) is true then it holds that the entirety of it is true, that writing is as much in order to find attention as to spill inner thoughts; otherwise a diary would suffice, and not a blog, column, or otherwise publicly posted work. Do you feel this is true for you? Are we all just seeking attention?
2. The woman who wrote this is a single parent. Knowing that, does that affect your interpretation of her interpretation of the events she describes at all?
My quick two cents; you read different things for different parts of yourself. Perhaps when Ms Jamieson was reading those columns she connected to a certain vulnerability, and when that left the work the reason she had been reading diminished. Should we transpose this idea onto what a writer chooses to write? I know I like reading a variety of things, and I hope that shows up in my work. Emotional needs is quintessential writing territory, but I hope so is physics, linguistics, history, psychology etc etc.
1. Find attention? Sometimes, admittedly. Not always, though. I think every writer is in it partially for the attention of others--it feels good to be recognized. Writers definitely write to spill inner thoughts. If their thoughts were communicated aloud, they would be a public speaker. I think it's partially the definition of the word "writer." 1a. See my first few sentences. My answer: writing is both to spill inner thoughts and to gain attention of some sort. Would you write for an audience if no audience would ever see? 2. I think it's a bit biased. The writer of the quote seems to be lifting him/herself up in a pompous way in order to justify their single status.
I would agree with this. This statement surprised me when I found it as the author's only bio. It seemed, frankly, a little bitchy. Moreover, it bases itself entirely off of conclusions that the author formed before looking for other theories and based solely off of very little evidence. The writer had a hunch and then found data that she believes supports that hunch. The statement as a whole also kind of traps the writer: if she ever finds anyone to be happy with, then according to her, her writing will suffer. As a result it encourages her not only to remain single, but to not attempt to find out if she could be happier with someone - as it would endager, potentially, something in which she is talented (I have read some of her other poems as well).The writer of the quote seems to be lifting him/herself up in a pompous way in order to justify their single status.
The author of Disney's John Carter of Mars said once in an essay that Art is one half of a secret handshake I urge to find people that are like you. Maybe if you have found someone that fulfills this need the urge diminishes.