Filed under Uncategorized
Save it for the angels.
By DAVID E. BOOKER
Don’t get slowed down by the idea, notion, goal, belief that what you write has to be perfect. Perfection is an illusion and a way to subjectively enthrall yourself to a writer’s block from which you will never be free. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be working to improve your writing talent and skills. It just means that you can expend a nearly infinite amount of time and energy getting your story, poem, essay, novel, article perfect and never be there.
Here are three things to remember if you feel you have to have it perfect before you go on.
1) No matter how perfect your writing is, you may still face rejection. For example, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was turned down 121 times. In other words, perfect does not guarantee publication.
2) Study long, study wrong. Many years ago when my father was teaching me to play cribbage, if I took too long to decide which card to play next, he would say, “Study long, study wrong.” While this may have reflected some of his impatience with my timidity, it is also a good piece of advice to keep in mind. Often it is the after getting something on paper that you can adjust it to make it better, not before.
3) Resistance is futile. It is true that, as Mark Twain said, the difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and lightning bug. Yet, it is also true that rewriting is writing, too, and the resistance you put up into not moving forward because you don’t have the right word or words will often times lead more toward futility than fruition. Better to start with the lightning bug and work you up to the right flash than do nothing and continue to curse the darkness of having written nothing.
None of this is meant to say your first draft should be the one your rush to publication. Very, very few writers have that level of mastery. But if you don’t get it done, you will never get it better.
Filed under Writing Tip Wednesday
In our continuing quest to revisit a classic, or even a curiosity from the past and see how relevant it is, we continue with The Devil’s Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce. Originally published in newspaper installments from 1881 until 1906. You might be surprised how current many of the entries are.
For example, here is a definition for the words Corporation and Congress. The Old definitions are Bierce’s. The New definition is mine. From time to time, just as it was originally published, we will come back to The Devil’s Dictionary, for a look at it then and how it applies today. Click on Devil’s Dictionary in the tags below to bring up the other entries.
OLD DEFINITION
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.
Congress, n. A body of men who meet to repeal laws.
NEW DEFINITION
Corporation, n.The only think I could add to corporation is: An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. Peopled with overcompensated executives whose sole purpose is to privatize the profit and socialize the debt. In the vernacular: heads, I win (I get to keep the profit); tails you lose (You have to cover the bad debts).
Congress, n. A body of men and women who meet to repeal laws, generally at the behest of a corporation. This is now true of both the federal Congress and the state Congresses throughout the U.S.
Lobbyist, n. Paid influence peddler, bag man for the corporation, general thief in the night whose sole purpose on behalf of corporations is to see that Congress understands which laws are to be repealed or weakened, and how this should be done, particularly since too many lobbyists are former elected officials. Lobbyists can promote on behalf of other entities and not only corporations, but the goal is generally the same.
[Editor’s note: lobbyist was not a term long in use when The Devil’s Dictionary was created.]
Final word:
“It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.” –MARK TWAIN
Filed under Ambrose Bierce, Devil's Dictionary, Mark Twain, satire
DEAR ABBY: I am a middle-aged woman who is Baptist by faith. I believe that when I die I will go to heaven, My problem is, if going to heavean means being reunited with my parents and other family members, then I don’t want to go! The idea of spending eternity with them is more than I can stand, but I don’t want to go to hell, either. Any thoughts? –Eternally Confused in Mississippi
DEAR ETERNALLY CONFUSED: Yes. When you reach the pearly gates, talk this over with St. Peter. Perhaps he would be willing to place you in a different wing than the one your parents and other family members are staying in. And in the meantime, discuss this with your minister.
&&&
Sometimes, you just can’t make things up. The entry above appeared in the Dear Abby column of my local paper in November of this year. In one sense, it needs no commentary, though it does remind me of the quote from mark Twain: “Heaven for climate and hell for society.” This also seems like a question the writer should have been asking of her minister before asking Dear Abby or even instead of Dear Abby, whose response is interesting and yet odd in its own way. “Wings” to heaven? Is this an attempt at a pun?
On the political front:
A member of Parliament to Disraeli: “Sir, you will either die on the gallows or of some unspeakable disease.”
“That depends, Sir,” said Disraeli, “whether I embrace your policies or your mistress.”
[Editor’s note: Only the line “Sir, I knew Jack Kennedy and you’re no Jack Kennedy” comes close to this in recent U.S. politics. Too bad we don’t have more of it.]
“He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts… for support rather than illumination.”
Andrew Lang (1844-1912)
Do opposites attract?
“He had delusions of adequacy.”
Walter Kerr
“He is a self-made man and worships his creator.”
John Bright
“He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.”
Winston Churchill
Words for the dead and dying:
“I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.”
Mark Twain
“I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.”
Clarence Darrow
“I’ve just learned about his illness. Let’s hope it’s nothing trivial.”
Irvin S. Cobb
On the literary front:
“He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.”
William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway)
“Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I’ll waste no time reading it.”
Moses Hadas
Literary point and counterpoint:
George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill:
“I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend, if you have one.” –
Winston Churchill, in response:
“Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second …. if there is one.”
Musical accompaniment:
“He has Van Gogh’s ear for music.”
Billy Wilder
Instead of saying your mother wears army boots:
“His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork.”
Mae West
“He loves nature in spite of what it did to him.”
Forrest Tucker
For the man (or woman) who has everything:
“He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.”
Oscar Wilde
“I feel so miserable without you; it’s almost like having you here.”
Stephen Bishop
“He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in others.”
Samuel Johnson
“He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up.”
Paul Keating
“In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily.”
Charles, Count Talleyrand
When the evening has come and gone not the way you hoped:
“Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.”
Oscar Wilde
“I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn’t it.”
Groucho Marx
The last word, or not:
“Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?”
Mark Twain
Filed under humor, Mark Twain, quote, Woirds to live by, word play, words
photo of Mark Twain
Unfortunately, there are fewer editors around these days, the victims of corporate downsizing many of them, so you will probably have to do this yourself, but it might just work. Every time you want to write “very,” write “damn” instead, then read the story out loud. Just don’t do it at an open mike night.
To learn more about Mark Twain: Mark Twain.
Filed under advice, editor, humor, Mark Twain, words, words to be wary of, writer, writing, writing tip
photo of Mark Twain
And somehow, if you don’t know who Mark Twain is, here’s where you can get a clue: Mark Twain.
Filed under advice, humor, Mark Twain, quote, Quote of the day, words, writer, writing, writing tip
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/07/books/07huck.html?_r=1&nl=books&emc=booksupdateemb5
January 6, 2011
Light Out, Huck, They Still Want to Sivilize You
By MICHIKO KAKUTANI
“All modern American literature,” Ernest Hemingway once wrote, “comes from one book by MarkTwain called ‘Huckleberry Finn.’ ”
Being an iconic classic, however, hasn’t protected “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” from being banned, bowdlerized and bleeped. It hasn’t protected the novel from being cleaned up, updated and “improved.”
A new effort to sanitize “Huckleberry Finn” comes from Alan Gribben, a professor of English at Auburn University, at Montgomery, Ala., who has produced a new edition of Twain’s novel that replaces the word “nigger” with “slave.” Nigger, which appears in the book more than 200 times, was a common racial epithet in the antebellum South, used by Twain as part of his characters’ vernacular speech and as a reflection of mid-19th-century social attitudes along the Mississippi River.
Filed under Huckleberry Finn, insanity, Mark Twain, Perils of writing, publishers, Random Access Thoughts, story, words, writing
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