I don’t have a list of these books, but I should. When I was in the seventh grade, I was given a stack of old sci fi mags that had a profound effect on me. They were poorly written, or so I thought-I could do better than that. I believe that it is this very thought that drives all writers to start writing. I can do better than that.
But once you start doing so serious reading, you find a lot of stuff that you can’t do better than-Moby Dick springs to mind, and Pride and Prejudice. But even the mundane world is filled with writing that I have to admit-I can’t do that. And it no longer matter when I read something bad, I just go on to the next book. But now I am inspired by the occasional shockingly good book-that I think I could write like that. These are books that, for the most part, I still can’t write like that, but for some reason, they trigger something in me that makes me want to try.
Angela’s Ashes is such a book-a masterpiece that I can’t hold a candle to, and yet when I read it-there is the certainty that I could have written it. This is what makes people sit around and say silly things like I”m going to write a novel when I retire-as if time is the only thing they need to whip out their magnum opus. I know I need more than time-but listening to Steve Martin read Born Standing Up once again hit that nerve-and I think I can write like Steve Martin. For a short time anyway.
This kind of impersonation of a great writer happens to all writers, most of us outgrow it and find our own voice-but there is still the temptation of a really great voice-I could use that voice and no one would be the wiser. Well, maybe Steve Martin, but he’s rich and famous and not likely to be reading anything I write.
There are times when I still think that I can write-really write. They have been few and far between of late, but they are still there. Hiding in the back of mind is my voice-and these are just the echoes trying to remind me that I am a writer. My own story is interesting, my own stories are funny, my own voice is worth listening to.
Another recent favorite is Julie and Julia, about a blogger who works her way through Julia Child’s The Art of French Cooking. It’s funny and silly and slightly obscene in any number of places. But the voice is once again familiar-I could write like that, if only I had something like that to say. The desire to take a year and do-something, seems silly and yet at the same time profound. What would I do? Move to London? Maybe. Ride a Tramp Steamer to Hawaii? Are there such things anymore? Go to Japan? China? Work my way through a cookbook/self help book/drawing book? Clean my humble house until it shines? A task that is much more daunting and impossible than moving to the other side of the world, believe me.
But it isn’t so much what these writers do, as that they are doing something. I have no focus whatsoever. Blogging is the closest I have come to having a purpose in my life-and I can’t even focus hard enough to make more than a few dollars a day. But maybe I going about it all the wrong way. It’s so random that it has passed eclectic by the roadside and wandered into meaninglessness.
Any idea my one or two readers? If you were going to start a new blog, or read a new blog-what would you want to do for a year? I’ve always wanted to be a stand up comic, but I don’t have Steve Martin’s genius. And I will still need to eat and pay my bills during this year-so hitching hiking across Europe is out, unless I could find a will audience to pay my way-I saw that on the Today Show not long ago-but now it has been done.
Maybe I should just read a few more books.
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