tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28133718.post6174360521251611903..comments2023-06-28T22:58:28.247+10:00Comments on Sixth In Line: The ritual of writingElisabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04015624747225433940noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28133718.post-87706559857943732832009-10-20T23:01:29.835+11:002009-10-20T23:01:29.835+11:00One of my 'writing teachers' urges her stu...One of my 'writing teachers' urges her students when in the throes of writing, to read writers who give them the feeling that they too can write. She suggests further that they not to read writers who fill them with jealousy, so much so that they go away full off admiration for the writer and are loaded down with loathing for themselves<br /><br />You're right, Jim. Insecurity breeds these concerns, but I'm the first to claim my insecurity, even as I know that I harbour another level of confidence. A confidence that enables me to write in the first place.Elisabethhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04015624747225433940noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28133718.post-6245686480883023032009-10-19T23:55:36.770+11:002009-10-19T23:55:36.770+11:00You're right, so many times people ask questio...You're right, so many times people ask questions about other writers' work practices; we love to see photos of their workplaces and pry into their procedures. To my mind this smacks of insecurity. We don't see a 'real writer' when we look in the mirror. I was talking about to another young writer only this morning and I'll share a paragraph from my comment to him which I'm thinking of doing something with as a work in itself. Maybe I'll expand on it or just present it as something for other writers to consider:<br /><br /><i>Why is it so much easier to stand before a portrait of a writer one admires than to look in the mirror? We all do it. And we persist in doing it convinced that if we just stare at the face of the next portrait down the line for long enough we'll finally see ourselves. And we'll make sense. I've never found anyone out there who writes like me. If I did I'd very likely quit and let him get on with it. No point in the two of us eating ourselves up over a few lines of poetry.</i><br /><br>Jim Murdochhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12786388638146471193noreply@blogger.com