4 ms·

If someone can talk you out of being a writer, you're not a writer. This is the kind of stupid romanticism that pisses me off coming from writers.

joshuarr 17y ago
It seems awfully true to me. Of course, just because you can't talk some one out of it doesn't mean they are indeed writers. You kinda need to be able to spell.
jporter 17y ago
How different is this from what PG says in "A Student's Guide to Startups"? "If it can work to start a startup during college, why do we tell people not to? ...[the] answer works out to be the right advice for everyone. The ones who are uncertain believe it and give up, and the ones who are sufficiently determined think "screw that, I'll succeed anyway."
GeneralMaximus 17y ago
What about "Hackers and Painters"? And then there's most of the Ruby community ... People love to make their work seem larger than life. Nothing wrong with it :)
unalone 17y ago
If you pass it off as stupid romanticism, I can assure you that you've never met a creative writer worth his salt. Perhaps it's different in realms of nonfiction, but I won't pretend that because I know nothing of nonfiction writers' passions. When you're dealing with creative writers, the ones that matter, you're dealing with a pervasive insanity and arrogance that can't be combated. It's not just creative writing, it's all the actively creative arts. I've met visual artists directors and composers who feel the same. You get it from actors and musicians too, but I've always felt their attitudes are more frequently diluted. You can be a good performer or a good actor without the vivid intensity that's almost required for the other fields, where you need to begin with the recklessness of believing you've got an idea worth conveying. I happen to be somebody with this perversion, so let me try and take it down from this lofty concept of romanticism and make it an idea that logic can comprehend. It doesn't start with a desire to create, though that desire's definitely required at some point. No: What it takes is a critical mindset, the belief that some things are objectively better than other things and that it's valuable to know which is which. That innate curiosity leads to a frustration very quickly, and here's why: When I approach books, music, video games, and to some degree films, I have an almost apocalyptic approach to how I'll observe things. A book needs to justify my reading it in the first sentence, or I'll put it down. A movie has a minute at most. Within that short frame, I'm looking for a multitude of things: Concept, style, approach, tautness. I see a whole slew of things that you will ignore or not care about. When I talk to people, I find it impossible to talk about these things, which are my passions. Want to talk video games? I think Fallout 3, CoD 4, Halo, are shit, I think Half Life 2 was mediocre, and the game I've been jamming to is a small 15-minute piece called Blueberry Garden about a man with a beak that's stuck in an island that's slowly filling up with water. So despite liking games, the only game where I remotely fit in with other gamers is Beatles Rock Band, and that doesn't have nearly enough depth to make for conversation. If we're talking music, my mind's hovering over a plethora of really weird genres and my approach to each of them is different from the approach that a fan of that genre would take. And forget talking literature. It doesn't happen. These things are my life. When I wake up in the morning, that's what my love centers around. As a result, I can't make small talk with most people. I can't talk sports or current events without alienating people. (You know how you'd react if a guy started talking about the playwright Beckett to you in random conversation? Your reaction to that is the reaction I have when people mention baseball, unless it's the Yankees, in which case I have vague feelings of pride.) They, in turn, can't talk to me about what I'm capable of talking about. So frustration builds up, which is released in more and more passionate forays into what I like and into surrounding fields. It's also important to note that I don't look at these things as an enthusiast. My tastes aren't the same as a music enthustiast's, or a literature enthustiast's. I go into art looking for very specific things. I know what I like, and I plunge into things looking. So even in the very small subset of people who approach the world like I do, there's not this constant feeling of fraternity like there is among football fans, or actors, or anime nerds. We meet each other at angles, and while we respect each other, it's always at a distance. The guy who got me into films saw Tropical Thunder with me and a slew of friends. He's a huge film buff. He loved the movie. I couldn't stand it. Meanwhile, he dislikes some of my favorite writers, and I find his favorite writers to be fairly bland. Each of us comes from a different root, and so while we can collaborate on things (which is a pretty unique trait for me), when we talk we constantly swing from amicability to animosity. It's harrowing, and the result is that even in a group of people we like and respect we don't get along well, meaning we spend even more time isolating ourselves in search of these unifying ideas. The result is that when we get the urge to make something, and we always do (nothing conveys our concepts well, and if they do then we don't give up, our concepts evolve), we approach the idea from unique angles and come up with ideas that we can't be dissuaded from. I mean, a lot of my ideas are throwaway ideas, or they're overly experimental, but when I occasionally hit on something that hasn't been done, then suddenly I'm not just a writer trying to create something, I'm merely sculpting the idea that I've hit upon. When you have something like that, then it's ludicrous to be told your thing has no merit. Of course it does, because it exists exactly the way you see it. If other people don't see it, then you don't throw it out, you just figure out why others aren't seeing it and you go back again. And this isn't an optional thing, it's not "let me make something because I want to write", it's "this is what I've been looking for, let me finish it up." There aren't other options. It's as natural and as mandatory a part of living as eating. Now, not every professional writer has this—but the writers worth anything, they do. It's possible to fake, but the fakes give themselves up in some way or other, whereas the real ones reveal themselves in their refusal to deviate from their thing. You also get a lot of people who are brilliant at one thing working on other things and revolutionizing them without necessarily being masters of those crafts. It's still a part of the same circle. You're not like that. Very few people are. It's not like some snobby social circle, it's mandated by personality, but it's very definite and it's hard to explain because, as I've realized over my life, there are some people that simply do not feel what I feel, and I can't explain it because it's not there for you. That doesn't make it not real.

joshuarr 17y ago

It seems awfully true to me. Of course, just because you can't talk some one out of it doesn't mean they are indeed writers. You kinda need to be able to spell.

jporter 17y ago

How different is this from what PG says in "A Student's Guide to Startups"? "If it can work to start a startup during college, why do we tell people not to? ...[the] answer works out to be the right advice for everyone. The ones who are uncertain believe it and give up, and the ones who are sufficiently determined think "screw that, I'll succeed anyway."

GeneralMaximus 17y ago

What about "Hackers and Painters"? And then there's most of the Ruby community ... People love to make their work seem larger than life. Nothing wrong with it :)

unalone 17y ago

If you pass it off as stupid romanticism, I can assure you that you've never met a creative writer worth his salt. Perhaps it's different in realms of nonfiction, but I won't pretend that because I know nothing of nonfiction writers' passions. When you're dealing with creative writers, the ones that matter, you're dealing with a pervasive insanity and arrogance that can't be combated. It's not just creative writing, it's all the actively creative arts. I've met visual artists directors and composers who feel the same. You get it from actors and musicians too, but I've always felt their attitudes are more frequently diluted. You can be a good performer or a good actor without the vivid intensity that's almost required for the other fields, where you need to begin with the recklessness of believing you've got an idea worth conveying. I happen to be somebody with this perversion, so let me try and take it down from this lofty concept of romanticism and make it an idea that logic can comprehend. It doesn't start with a desire to create, though that desire's definitely required at some point. No: What it takes is a critical mindset, the belief that some things are objectively better than other things and that it's valuable to know which is which. That innate curiosity leads to a frustration very quickly, and here's why: When I approach books, music, video games, and to some degree films, I have an almost apocalyptic approach to how I'll observe things. A book needs to justify my reading it in the first sentence, or I'll put it down. A movie has a minute at most. Within that short frame, I'm looking for a multitude of things: Concept, style, approach, tautness. I see a whole slew of things that you will ignore or not care about. When I talk to people, I find it impossible to talk about these things, which are my passions. Want to talk video games? I think Fallout 3, CoD 4, Halo, are shit, I think Half Life 2 was mediocre, and the game I've been jamming to is a small 15-minute piece called Blueberry Garden about a man with a beak that's stuck in an island that's slowly filling up with water. So despite liking games, the only game where I remotely fit in with other gamers is Beatles Rock Band, and that doesn't have nearly enough depth to make for conversation. If we're talking music, my mind's hovering over a plethora of really weird genres and my approach to each of them is different from the approach that a fan of that genre would take. And forget talking literature. It doesn't happen. These things are my life. When I wake up in the morning, that's what my love centers around. As a result, I can't make small talk with most people. I can't talk sports or current events without alienating people. (You know how you'd react if a guy started talking about the playwright Beckett to you in random conversation? Your reaction to that is the reaction I have when people mention baseball, unless it's the Yankees, in which case I have vague feelings of pride.) They, in turn, can't talk to me about what I'm capable of talking about. So frustration builds up, which is released in more and more passionate forays into what I like and into surrounding fields. It's also important to note that I don't look at these things as an enthusiast. My tastes aren't the same as a music enthustiast's, or a literature enthustiast's. I go into art looking for very specific things. I know what I like, and I plunge into things looking. So even in the very small subset of people who approach the world like I do, there's not this constant feeling of fraternity like there is among football fans, or actors, or anime nerds. We meet each other at angles, and while we respect each other, it's always at a distance. The guy who got me into films saw Tropical Thunder with me and a slew of friends. He's a huge film buff. He loved the movie. I couldn't stand it. Meanwhile, he dislikes some of my favorite writers, and I find his favorite writers to be fairly bland. Each of us comes from a different root, and so while we can collaborate on things (which is a pretty unique trait for me), when we talk we constantly swing from amicability to animosity. It's harrowing, and the result is that even in a group of people we like and respect we don't get along well, meaning we spend even more time isolating ourselves in search of these unifying ideas. The result is that when we get the urge to make something, and we always do (nothing conveys our concepts well, and if they do then we don't give up, our concepts evolve), we approach the idea from unique angles and come up with ideas that we can't be dissuaded from. I mean, a lot of my ideas are throwaway ideas, or they're overly experimental, but when I occasionally hit on something that hasn't been done, then suddenly I'm not just a writer trying to create something, I'm merely sculpting the idea that I've hit upon. When you have something like that, then it's ludicrous to be told your thing has no merit. Of course it does, because it exists exactly the way you see it. If other people don't see it, then you don't throw it out, you just figure out why others aren't seeing it and you go back again. And this isn't an optional thing, it's not "let me make something because I want to write", it's "this is what I've been looking for, let me finish it up." There aren't other options. It's as natural and as mandatory a part of living as eating. Now, not every professional writer has this—but the writers worth anything, they do. It's possible to fake, but the fakes give themselves up in some way or other, whereas the real ones reveal themselves in their refusal to deviate from their thing. You also get a lot of people who are brilliant at one thing working on other things and revolutionizing them without necessarily being masters of those crafts. It's still a part of the same circle. You're not like that. Very few people are. It's not like some snobby social circle, it's mandated by personality, but it's very definite and it's hard to explain because, as I've realized over my life, there are some people that simply do not feel what I feel, and I can't explain it because it's not there for you. That doesn't make it not real.