[lit-ideas] Re: Fwd: Why philosophy?

>>Those of us for whom writing is a craft and a business (and at times great fun as well) are a different breed of cat from those obsessed with the notion that something inside has to get out in the form of written words.
The central distinction is this: there's writing on assignment, and there's writing that one must do or risk becoming increasingly unhappy. I'd be content not to engage any new commercial work -- Hey! A Lotto winner! -- yet if I were to slack off on my personal writing for a couple months, I'd fall into a depression. It would be a death.
You must admit hybrid species of cats. For example, I wrote for a magazine during a two-year period when I also wrote my first novel. Being a contributing editor did teach important writing skills: the notion of writing as a piece of work with a deadline, when to let go of a project, and how to get over myself and accept criticism and rejection. Plus it yielded a paycheck.
Subsequent copywriting work enhanced those skills, since one must throw out, throw out, and throw out; rewrite, write again, and write again -- rather than sit in a garret polishing one stubborn but beautiful paragraph that doesn't quite work. In a fiction master class, Peter Carey agreed that copywriting is one of the best jobs for aspiring fiction writers because it teaches that discipline and that humility.
Yet I digress. There's work that yields the joy of work well done. There's also work that must be done to feel that one is living well. They may be done concurrently. 

Eric
PS: Thanks or sending your gallery link, John. I've bookmarked it. It's a beautiful collection. 





------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html

Other related posts: