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Tightening the work = work.

10/12/2014

2 Comments

 
Picture
Sloppy writing is distracting!  There, I said it.  It is painfully obvious when writers suffer their readers to smash against the boulders of an unkempt field of words, ideas, and intention ... and it is rude.  

Mark Twain, always good for a clever quip, once said, "It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech."  You may laugh, but this quote brings up a curious point:

Why do some writers allow lesser work to stand in for what could be so much more?  Why aren't their wrenches, rulers, and hammers ... the instruments of the writer's toolbox ...  painstakingly applied?

There is a great deal of trust between authors and their readers that can be easily destroyed by careless writing.  Most readers will not endure this sort of abuse for very long.  They don't have to.

There are libraries and bookshops replete with excellent writing that never settled for, "Its good enough," composed by writers who strove ardently, warranting  the readership they aspired to, and achieved.   

I cringe when I notice my own laziness, and especially so when someone else points it out to me.  It offends my stance on diligence, and my ego, and rightly so.  I have cheated my reader and myself.  


Had I deliberated over the perfect word, the most poignant phrase, with which to elucidate the vagaries my thoughts, rather than allow the work to slide by, that poem would have come into its own.     

Is this why some books languish, unread, for years in bookshops, in libraries, and on the ever expansive internet?  Does unpolished writing lead automatically to obscurity?  I'm of a mind that it does.


In the literary atmosphere of today, everyone is a poet: prose and free verse have deemed it so.  Where lackluster novels abound, anyone can be an author.  The scepter is now available to all comers.


However ...

A brilliantly faceted diamond will always catch the eye when it sits in a field of  haphazardly strewn, unrefined coal.  Is it the gleam of the gem that causes notice, or its dull surroundings?  Perhaps it's both.



   
    
2 Comments
Stanley
10/12/2014 07:09:11 am

A diamond vs. coal, yes. But sometimes people can't distinguish the difference when it comes to words. Few are taught in school what those differences might be, but I support your struggle to make the difference.

Reply
JaniceT
10/12/2014 11:45:16 am

Thank you, Stanley. Yes, that is sadly true, which is why I always encourage people to seek out and read great literature and great poetry. One can learn the difference.

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    About the author:

    I've written many poems over the years.  This blog is a preview of my books: Echoes, Neo-Victorian Poetry (April 2013), Echoes ll, More Neo-Victorian Poetry (May 2014), Echoes lll, Even More Neo-Victorian Poetry, (August 2016), A Compilation of Echoes. (September 2016), and When None Command (April 13, 2019)

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