The Write Way
"From the moment I picked up your book until I laid it down, I was convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading it."
Good old Groucho Marx, always reliable for a pithy quotation when you need one! After wading through an indigestible "best seller" I got to thinking about the common misconception that everyone has a book inside them. Sometimes it would be better had it indeed remained so - inside them.
When an aspiring writer (who’d probably never put pen to paper in her entire life) said that she could have easily written one of the visiting author’s hugely popular novels, Maeve Binchy, the culprit in question replied: "Well why don’t you?"
Still, we can all dream. And while we dream we buy endless books on the subject of writing: How to Write a Novel! How not to Write a Novel! How to Publish your Book! How to make Money from your Writing! The list is endless, the advice is plentiful, but the difference between those who write and those who don’t is bums on seats; it’s often as simple as that. Some write with a pen, others clack away on old typewriters, while computers have spawned bloggers to beat the band. The first classic to be hammered out on a typewriter was by Mark Twain while Jack Kerouac used a telex for his one page wonder, On the Road. Nowadays, we have every kind of convenience to help us hammer those words out while my good friend, Alice, in Greystones by the sea, writes her marvellous short stories with a pencil on any available scraps of paper to hand.
Stephen King’s brief memoir entitled, On Writing, gives us a mere
glimpse into his world where he churns out huge doorstoppers of novels that sell in their millions and are then turned into block busting movies. Everyone wants to know how he does it, what his secret is and so they buy his book and find that he sits at home, putting in the hours, honing his craft and filling the blank pages. It’s the same with all successful writers: we want to know from where they get their inspiration.
One of my favourite books is a novella by Alan Bennett, The Uncommon Reader.
When I read the blurb on the jacket I wasn’t too keen, but I should have trusted this author who has a vivid imagination and a delicate mastery of the English language. It’s about reading, and books and opens with the Queen of England walking the corgis outside the kitchen garden where a mobile library is stationed. In she pops and starts a love affair with all things literary, even going so far as throwing a garden party for those who make their living by the pen. When she sidles up to a certain Scottish author to ask him, politely, where he gets his inspiration from, he replies, rather tartly: "It doesn’t come, Your Majesty. You have to go out and fetch it."
I know plenty of people who write far better than I do. But I put in the hours, banging out words, shaping them, putting them in some reasonable order, working with my limitations and filling the page. I may never have the word ‘author’ in my passport but I sure as hell am going to keep on trying.
Good old Groucho Marx, always reliable for a pithy quotation when you need one! After wading through an indigestible "best seller" I got to thinking about the common misconception that everyone has a book inside them. Sometimes it would be better had it indeed remained so - inside them.
When an aspiring writer (who’d probably never put pen to paper in her entire life) said that she could have easily written one of the visiting author’s hugely popular novels, Maeve Binchy, the culprit in question replied: "Well why don’t you?"
Still, we can all dream. And while we dream we buy endless books on the subject of writing: How to Write a Novel! How not to Write a Novel! How to Publish your Book! How to make Money from your Writing! The list is endless, the advice is plentiful, but the difference between those who write and those who don’t is bums on seats; it’s often as simple as that. Some write with a pen, others clack away on old typewriters, while computers have spawned bloggers to beat the band. The first classic to be hammered out on a typewriter was by Mark Twain while Jack Kerouac used a telex for his one page wonder, On the Road. Nowadays, we have every kind of convenience to help us hammer those words out while my good friend, Alice, in Greystones by the sea, writes her marvellous short stories with a pencil on any available scraps of paper to hand.
Stephen King’s brief memoir entitled, On Writing, gives us a mere
glimpse into his world where he churns out huge doorstoppers of novels that sell in their millions and are then turned into block busting movies. Everyone wants to know how he does it, what his secret is and so they buy his book and find that he sits at home, putting in the hours, honing his craft and filling the blank pages. It’s the same with all successful writers: we want to know from where they get their inspiration. One of my favourite books is a novella by Alan Bennett, The Uncommon Reader.
When I read the blurb on the jacket I wasn’t too keen, but I should have trusted this author who has a vivid imagination and a delicate mastery of the English language. It’s about reading, and books and opens with the Queen of England walking the corgis outside the kitchen garden where a mobile library is stationed. In she pops and starts a love affair with all things literary, even going so far as throwing a garden party for those who make their living by the pen. When she sidles up to a certain Scottish author to ask him, politely, where he gets his inspiration from, he replies, rather tartly: "It doesn’t come, Your Majesty. You have to go out and fetch it."I know plenty of people who write far better than I do. But I put in the hours, banging out words, shaping them, putting them in some reasonable order, working with my limitations and filling the page. I may never have the word ‘author’ in my passport but I sure as hell am going to keep on trying.
Labels: Alan Bennett, Groucho Marx, Stephen King, writing
