On Writing

So many of the writing mags and books seem to focus on the process of writing with the subtle message that if your words dazzle and sing, you will be a success. They seem to overlook (too often) the fact that a writer needs to have a message worth saying.

The words are a picture frame that enables us to focus on the image we share/show. But the greatest work should be the thought that conspires to produce the message, this image that reflects our inner sense and ultimately Reality as it is.

Writers abound. Wordsmiths crank out prose from any and every space large enough to set a typewriter & chair. But of prophets there are few... Content has been by-passed for the sake of craftmanship. [Nabokov so teaches and thus fails to understand the greatest minds of literature -- Tolstoy, Dostoevski, Checkov]

Oct. 30 1985

Reading this 22 years later I am reminded of the comment by Katherine Ann Porter on writers who are more concerned with flashy effects than content. "And yet, we know how fatal the pursuit of liveliness may be: it may result in... tiresome acrobatics. Flashy effects distract the mind. They destroy their persuasiveness; you would not believe a man was very intent on ploughing a furrow if he carried a hoop with him and jumped through it at every other step."

See my web page of quotes for writers at http://www.enewman.biz/writing.html