I'm done with craft

This morning I got an email from a colleague with publishing problems, and that got me going.

Here's some of what I said:

Exactly. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. And when it doesn't, there's no publicity about it, and so you feel like the only one in the world who finds herself pushed down in the mud by the rolling wheel of American commerce, which of course rolls on and has a teeny tiny little rearview mirror.

Writing is one thing, art is something else, and publishing is another field altogether. Sometimes they have something to do with one another. Sometimes.

You'll see the strengths and weaknesses of "Rock, Paper, Tiger" (a first novel by Lisa Brackmann). It wouldn't surprise me to learn that she'd read some of your stuff on YouWriteOn. But probably not. It's always so easy to see what's wrong with the other guy's golf swing, and almost impossible to figure out what's wrong with your own. Even if one has an absolute and total commitment to objectivity (which I, for one, possess in limitless quantities), even though this, it is still at best damn hard to do. I think writing is exactly the same in this respect.

(And now I see I've started to write my next blog entry, so this isn't just an email to you.)

I've been thinking about something else. I've been thinking that I will turn my writing blog (do you ever look at it?) from the subject that has been its focus since I started it -- craft -- and now I will take up the next topic which seems to me to be next, which is art.

I don't have any more to say about craft. Craft can be learned by anyone interested in learning it. Most people who "want to write," i.e., those who have access to Microsoft Word, make only half-hearted attempts at learning it. They would rather follow the less demanding process of hackers everywhere. This process is trial and error.

There are two qualities of writer in the world: those to whom it mostly comes gift wrapped in an intuitive understanding of how to manipulate mirror neurons, people like 10th grade dropout Louis L'amour, and then there are the rest of us. The Louis L'amours are at this very minute doing what they enjoy, probably writing their next novel. The rest of us, on the other hand, are snooping around the web, looking for insight, looking tips, looking for hints, wondering if we should buy the software scheme that promises to help develop characters or generate plot lines. We are like the guy who bought that laser thingie that tracks on the floor his swing plane, who suffered the humiliation of going to the practice range and strapping on the gizmo that is supposed to give him a feel for a good swing. We're like the guy on the range hitting the big banana ball who finally on the twentieth try hits one straight, and is from then on absolutely convinced that eventually this trial and error technique will pay off. He doesn't understand that about every 20th ball is going to be better than the others, no matter what he does, and that, in Ben Hogan's words, everything works the first time you try it. There's a parallel here to the guy who gets a ten and a face card with the first five bucks he shoves out on the table at Binion's and goes on to run up the limit on his Visa card, the same psychological mechanism is at work, but I won't go into that.

What got me deciding to move on from craft to art? For one, I've been bored with craft for quite a while. I've absorbed a lot of craft, enough so that I feel like I don't need any more (despite what anyone else might think). I believe I've got enough craft to do whatever it is I want to do (which isn't much, I have little ambition). Craft is over for me, has been for some time, but it took a while and certain events to bring this to my attention (I'm a pretty slow learner).

Yesterday at one of the writing sites, I read a piece by a hopeful writer that had some of the worst dialogue I'd ever encountered. I read it, and I realized there was nothing I could say other than it was terrible. Could I explain why it was bad? No. That would involve psychotherapy. ("Let's talk about what you were reading what movies you were seeing when you were thirteen years old and how you've felt about your own self-image down through the years. Let's start there.")

I think dialogue can be learned, but I have absolutely no idea how one can even begin to teach it. Somebody else probably does (there's always someone, isn't there? or someone who at least claims they can?), but not me.

Here is Bill's Zen dialogue on learning to write dialogue.

"Hey, Bill, can you help me learn to write better dialogue?"

"Sure, glad to help. Here's what you do: pay attention."

"Pay attention to what?"

"What have you got?"

"That isn't very helpful."

"Try it."

"Try what?"

"Paying attention."

"Paying attention to what, exactly?"

"What is there?"

"Well, there's everything."

"Okay. Pay attention to that."

Yes, that's how it works. The Magic Theater. Not for Everybody. And just when you think you might be getting somewhere, the curtain comes down, the house lights go up, the ashtrays are full, the drinks have been spilled, someone has barfed in the mens room and the janitor has thrown up his hands and walked out in disgust.