{"id":5752,"date":"2012-10-19T06:00:40","date_gmt":"2012-10-19T11:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/?p=5752"},"modified":"2012-10-19T06:00:40","modified_gmt":"2012-10-19T11:00:40","slug":"what-makes-it-great","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/?p=5752","title":{"rendered":"What Makes It Great"},"content":{"rendered":"
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There are a lot of times when I’m writing that I feel like this guy but without the spectre of death looming over me. Image borrowed from this site<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When I read something I really like, that makes me think, that just stuns me with its elegance or simplicity or beauty, I want to emulate it. I want to know why it works so well, why it hit me so hard. I want to dissect it and hold its beating heart in my hands in order to understand. When I get frustrated, I watch this clip from\u00a0A League Of Their Own<\/a>.<\/p>\n

However, since I have very little schooling, or formal training, as a writer I don\u2019t have any way to really dig in and get to the core of something I want to learn. The tools just aren\u2019t there. So what I have to do is sit down and study. And study hard.<\/p>\n

The thing is that when I do that, it\u2019s kind of frustrating. Actually not just kind of frustrating, really frustrating. It\u2019s time I have to spend on something that I\u2019m absolutely sure that my peers in the Cafe who have the formal schooling, the training, can figure out in a heartbeat and then get back to writing. The most difficult part of being a self-taught writer is asking for help as to why something works or doesn\u2019t. Knowing what I like and trying to write like that is really the best I can do and knowing that it\u2019s possible that there\u2019s another way is maddening. What\u2019s worse, I could ask my friends in the Cafe and they would tell me. I don\u2019t, though, and I can\u2019t tell you why. Not for any reason other than I just don\u2019t.<\/p>\n

But one of the easy parts of being self-taught is that I don\u2019t have to care why something works. I can write and not worry. Sit my ass in a chair and start typing.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s as easy as it sounds.<\/p>\n

But what\u2019s easier is just getting into the Zone and writing for all I\u2019m worth. Once my fingers start flying over the keys and I see words piling up in a story or an essay (like this one) I\u2019m feeling pretty good about being a writer. It\u2019s up to others to judge how good a writer I am, but when things are firing on all cylinders I feel like a capital-W Writer.<\/p>\n

Look, anyone who thinks that being a writer is easy, that all you have to do is write, is fooling himself. It\u2019s as difficult as any other skilled work in any other sector of society. Just like those who denigrate abstract art as “something my kid could do,” it\u2019s ludicrous to think that “anyone” can be a writer. It takes a lot of will, imagination, and strength to do this work. It\u2019s about desire and organization on multiple levels no matter what the genre.<\/p>\n

When I tell you something is easy, it\u2019s because I\u2019ve been practicing, working at being a writer. Telling stories that entertain others is hard work, make no mistake, and as rewarding as being a rock star performing on stage when the audience gets what you\u2019re saying. When I tell you something is hard, you can believe it\u2019s hard for me and that it might be easier for someone else with training.<\/p>\n

What I want you to take away from this is that I love what I do, and I work hard at it every day. You can, too, if that\u2019s what you want to do.<\/p>\n

All you have to do is do it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I read something I really like, that makes me think, that just stuns me with its elegance or simplicity or beauty, I want to emulate it. I want to know why it works so well, why it hit me so hard. I want to dissect it and hold its beating heart in my hands […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[94,323,493,1276],"class_list":["post-5752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-process","tag-baseball","tag-easy","tag-hard","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5752\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}