Sep 20
5 strengths…
I’ve been meme’d.
I’ve sat on this for 4 days, partly because of my computerlessness but mostly because the task is not an easy one:
Name 5 of your strengths as a writer / artist.
Like Musing who tagged me, I could easily name 5 weaknesses, or 50, but even though I will state I am a good writer, my reasons for doing so are based on why I write and my experience when I write rather than being an analysis of the writing itself.
Although it seems counterintuitive, writing is what leads to understanding, not the other way around, and I am hesitant to take away a little of the mystery of the process. But craft as much as art creates good writing so this is a meme worth answering.
(I should probably clarify that when I think of my writing, it is my novel which dominates my thoughts. None of my fiction is published here (yet) so you will have nothing to weigh my opinion against. You’ll just have to take my word for it.)
Strength #1 - Truth
Truth is unwieldy. It is large and paradoxical and difficult. I write the truth; the brutal, raw, ugly, uncompromising, but never absolute, truth. It is my standard of beauty.
Strength #2 - Reading
You can only learn about language - both what it can do and what it can say - by reading. Years of studying grammar and style cannot substitute for it. They can only make conscious what you already know. Being a good writer is dependent on reading. And the best reading inspires you and challenges you. It makes you pause and write whole passages in your head, it makes you reach for your notebook. It makes you think and it makes you flow. I have the appetite for it and I feed it.
Strength #3 - Poetry
There is poetry in my prose. It is driven by rhythm and imagery. It is rich and dense. It can be read aloud. It can be read again.
Strength #4 - Voice
My voice is my own. I’m sure I could name “influences” (Henry Miller and Violette Leduc spring to mind) but they are writers I recognise something in, writers I feel an affinity to. I could never hope to emulate them and I have never tried. The content and style of my writing is mine alone.
Strength #5 - Love
You cannot write the truth and hate the truth. If you try, you will go mad. I love people. As they are. I know their infinite potential cannot be seen without accepting the depths to which they can sink. The best of us and the worst of us are the same. The subject matter I write about is often sordid, often unhappy, but it is never negative.
For this meme I tag:
- Rosemary Nissen-Wade
- Edrei Zahari
- Rebecca Woolf
September 21st, 2007 at 5:39 pm
Love what you say here, and am willing to take your word for it on the basis of the writing I HAVE seen.
OK, I’ll give it some thought and see what I can come up with for me.
September 22nd, 2007 at 12:41 pm
This was hard, wasn’t it? But, I’m glad you shared.
I liked what you said about writing with love-love of the truth, of hard reality, of fellow human beings. And yet without negativity. That is rare, I think.
And I’ll certainly read your novel if it’s ever available! Are you looking to have it published?
September 22nd, 2007 at 4:05 pm
First goal is to finish it! Then I’ll be sending it to every likely publisher I can think of to get it into print.
September 22nd, 2007 at 10:50 pm
Cool! How much do have written?
September 26th, 2007 at 4:59 pm
I’ve covered that question in my new post. The answer is basically that I need a big kick up the….