Elizabeth Gilbert: Is writing really so (bleeping) hard? Compared to what?

Wasn't it Bobby Knight who said, "We learn how to write in the third grade. Most of us go on to other things" in one of his rants against sportswriters?

 

In fairness, Bob Knight is one of the biggest cock knocks on the planet.

 

Indeed I did.

What I do, what Dick does, what doctorquant does, what others might do with the written word . . . that's not easy either.

But we do it, and we don't assign any kind of emotional baggage to make it sound like we're special. Others in our respective professions sometimes do act like what they do makes them special. Not a path I choose to take.

"In fact, I'm going to go out on a limb here and share a little secret about the writing life that nobody likes to admit: Compared to almost every other occupation on earth, it's f*cking great."

Pretty much sums it up.

I also didn't think the Roth conversation, in full context in Tepper's original blog, was all that bad. He gave a considered response to Tepper.

 

No, it wasn't all that bad. It was an off the cuff response that, I'll be honest, is the kind of response I'd expect Roth to give. The man wrote some terrifically dark stuff.

Elizabeth Gilbert pretty much wrote what I'd expect her to write, too.

I was under the impression David Foster Wallace thought writing was quite hard and full of existential pain.

 

Mr Fart: I bet that happens constantly, actually. Constantly. Lot of heart surgeons with enormous egos.

 

Far be it from me to disagree with Mr. Fart after our well-remembered days of combining for so many goals in intramural soccer . . .

But this is absolutely correct.

This is also correct, my SAE brother.

Yes.

But it doesn't have to be that way. We don't have to overthink our respective professions.

 

May I recommend to all three of you the work of Dr. Richard Selzer, writer and surgeon?

 

Forget Mamet, there's a true polymath.
Probably knows how to _really_ open a vein.

 

Loved his work on Homicide.

[/SmartAleck]

 

Belzer works blue. Selzer works purple. The prose can be a little too rococo, as can the egotism, but the insights into surgery and the body and the mind and the spirit are remarkable.

 

There is a proud tradition of physician-writers, from St. Luke to Keats.
It's an interesting correlation.

 

Says you. Says someone else, different.

What I get out of this:

Roth tried to impart something to a writer.

The writer scurried to a literary blog to make A Big Connection.

Another writer decided to take the Big Connection to make a Big Statement, including that authors like Roth are apparently secretly afraid of other writers taking their job. Her prescription for what Roth should have said is to be falsely magnanimous and patronizing.

I guess I'm supposed to pat on the back all those immensely-talented-and-yet-salt-of-the-earth-humble folks who've reached excellence in writing yet maintain that the "real" world contains "real" toil and trouble.

Maybe I've lived longer than that to know that, when you dive all the way into something, it consumes you in a way where it would be disrespectful - to you, to it - to call "fucking great."

There's a difference between genuine encouragement and just saying/writing a bunch of pap about how blessed you are. Some people stink at encouraging others in a productive way; then again, more advance notice than a book being shoved in your face helps.