Posts Tagged "Blogs"
On the Ethos of “The Writer”
I had a friend at UC Irvine who constantly talked about “The Writer.” The idea of “The Writer,” as I understand it, is a creation of movies and the media. It’s a cultural stereotype of what writers are, and aspiring writers tend to take this and romanticize it. This makes sense; if one wants to be a writer, they might try to adopt the traits of a writer.
But many of these traits are not even related to writing. Sometimes it feels like bad marketing in practice. Going “Real writers like wine. So if I want to be a writer, I should drink wine” feels very similar to “LeBron James drinks Sprite. So if I want to be a basketball player, I should drink Sprite.”
Some of these aspiration fantasies are downright destructive if emulated: aggrandizing dysfunctional relationships, symptoms of mental illness, and substance abuse.
“Scarf to look pensive in the cold. Check. Saddle that looks great in black and white photographs. Check. Galoshes because they were referenced in James Joyce’s “The Dead.” Check. Abusive relationship. Check. And I’m already drunk. Guess who’s ready for AWP.”
I don’t know why my friend was so obsessed with conforming to this stereotype. It might have been because he transferred to being an English major from something completely different and did so late in his academic career. I don’t know if he became infatuated with “the writer” because he was insecure around all these more knowledgeable English majors or if it was his infatuation with the writer image that made him transfer to begin with.
Now my friend is by no means alone. I’ve been to three schools now with three very different writing communities, but all of them had this same common feature. There were students who had a view of “the writer” ethos. I see this either used as a goal, “I need to start doing drugs to become a great writer” (Do not do this). Or it’s used to justify a present lifestyle “I do so many drugs, because that’s what writers do.”
“I smoke a pipe, because I’m a writer. Tobacco? No, it’s full of DMT, the chemical your brain releases when you die. I’ve experienced the moment of death. Have you experienced the moment of death?”
Now I’ve been friends with many writers throughout their entire careers as they’ve unfolded thus far. They’ve changed their mind about certain things after gaining new experiences about the literary world. The friend from UC Irvine went on to work at an agency. Before this job he used to be someone who cared about quality and personal truth. Then he redefined what “the writer” does. According to a phone call I had with him, he said “the writer” keeps track of market trends and writes what is needed.
I don’t think most writers whose name you actually know have ever done that. It’s usually the insecure bottom feeder authors with no vision who do this. But this tells something about the nature of worshiping the image of “the writer.” We make the “the writer” in our image to reaffirm our identity, but also to put ourselves in a status above others who do not fall into our arbitrary categories.
“Real writers have wings, pink hair and a butterfly cutie mark. It represents a unity with nature which is a left over ideology from the Romantic Era poets. But you wouldn’t know that because you’re not a special writer like me. I realized this on my morning walk. Morning walks are something the writer does. If you don’t take morning walks, then you’re not a real writer…a real writer like me. I’m a real writer. My mom was not right about me wasting my time and money on a career path that will never bring me happiness or success. I’m not wasting my life!”
The problem is everyone actually is a scholar of literature to some degree. Everyone enjoys some media of storytelling and poetry somewhere in their lives, whether it is advertisements, conversations, TV, movies, blogs, books… But when everyone is a scholar to some extent, a writer might feel that they have to do much more to separate themselves from the rest of the world, make themselves stand out and be special.
I try to avoid generalizations about what “the writer” does. It is damaging to the art form. We get all these wonderful and diverse people from all walks of life coming in to give their experiences of the world, but what do we do? We encourage them to conform to a hipster douche bag who drink a certain type of liquor and has terrible relationships. If someone is suggesting you’re less of an artist for being who you are, that person knows nothing about art or sex they couldn’t read in any trendy, New York, underground, fashion magazine.
I’ll admit I stole that last line from Say Anything (the band not the movie).
While I don’t believe that there’s a particular way that writers must be, I think there are definitely attitudes and behaviors that, if adopted, would greatly benefit a writer. Some of them are as follows: be eager to learn, accept criticism, learn to get the message despite the messenger, learn other people’s perspectives (including people you hate and who have wronged you), be open to new and different strategies, be open to the idea that even though you think you do these things that you might not actually do them as well as you think…
I have received criticism for this blog saying that it wasn’t very literary because of the ponies.
Twilight Sparkle is all about books. Your argument is invalid.
These people are well-meaning. They’re trying to look out for my career, but I feel like they don’t quite understand why or how I write. I don’t want to put a fake smile on and try to write about writing in a very general sense, blindly reposting writer porn, challenging nobody, making no original thoughts, and any angst or pain should be packaged and exploited for the sake of “seeming real.”
If other people think that acting out a crafted character and pretending you are this person on the internet (Wow, I never realized how much writers have in common with furries), then more power to you. I do not believe this is a behavior that should generate a real fandom nor should it generate respect among your peers. But it is what everyone is told to do in writing school, so I assume it is safe.
I’m taking a different road. I do not see writing a fake blog where I pretend to be a version of myself who is more like “the writer” and less in love with My Little Pony as a proper use of my talents or my time. I will stand out by being myself. Let’s see how that turns out.
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