Tuesday, June 12, 2007

The more writing I do on this blog and other places, the more of an appreciation I have for those individuals whose job it is to write all day, every day and get paid for it. Don't get me wrong, it is a job that I still aspire to have one day no matter how old I get, but it is definitely a tedious one. Not only do you have to come up with a subject matter that is both relevant and readable, but you also have to write it in a creative way, so that it stands out head and shoulders above the millions of other writers and bloggers who may have decided to cover the exact same thing. And if you are getting paid for it, that means an editor somewhere is probably monitoring what you do, how well you do it, and the general public's response to what is written. And that last part is the most difficult part for me. I rarely get upset when something I write here in this blog is criticized, because I know if I wanted to, I could take the author of the comment, and rip them the next day in this very space. But when my sports articles are criticized, my skin tends to be a lot thinner, because I still consider myself to be a neophyte at this. Yes I love sports, and yes I've been writing about sports on my own for about 8-9 years now, but here recently my articles have received just a little more exposure, and my own personal insecurities are being exposed just a little bit. The only cure for that is to keep writing and to flood the market with as much writing material as I possibly can, so I don't feel quite as bad.

Continuing with this writing theme, I have the ultimate respect for people who can write creatively. My friend Jamal does an excellent job of this on his blog, and I wish I possessed this talent as well. I remember in college, I had an assignment of writing a poem with a Valentine's Day theme, and it literally took me all night to come up with something that was really really corny. It just isn't in me to be creative. But if you send me to an event, and ask me to write on it and have an opinion, I'm all over it. This is why I have so much resentment towards people who write poetry(not rappers). These people can write about six lines that rhyme(or sometimes not), and then they give the poem some off the wall abstract title, and when you ask them what it means, they say well what do you think it means. I don't like that kind of ambiguity in my life man. If YOU wrote, then YOU tell me what it means, and once I know, then I'll go back and try to sift through it myself. But most poets don't give you the pleasure of doing that and it burns me up. **Sidebar: This is the EXACT reason why so many people were disgusted with the Sopranos finale. Instead of writing of definitive ending, David Chase wrote an ending that left people wondering what happened, and it was open to multiple interpretations. As my main man Michael Wilbon said, this is a mafia series, give me gore and murder first, introspection a distant second.**sidebar over. As much as I hate poetry, I do have one poem that I will always love and it is this one.

What's Going On - Donny Hathaway

6 comments:

BewRadley said...

I always wish to have a creative flair to my writing but i try to bring my personality to it..and i hope i convey that..

I don't keep up with the Sopranos anymore...but I'm praying they don't do the same thing to The Wire's last episode..

Unknown said...

I have so many ideas but word choice and editing get in the way. I feel like good writing takes time and I really don't want to put the time in.

*response to the sidebar* i didn't have hbo for this season but my coworkers are speculating that the DVD will have alternate endings. So they left it abrupt for DVD sales.

Miss Black River said...

No TV so I missed the Sopranos finale. Sad for me because I used to watch that show.

On writing - I'm hoping to get a book done myself. Creative writing is fun for me, but I'm gonna do non-ficition for my first offering.

Jo said...

Depressing poem . . .

And what was up with Jamal's Tate . . .sick! But yes, he had me . . .

You are a critic (a comedic critic at that), not a creative artist . . .there is a difference . . .you are able to write about that which moves you, and not in the abstract, but in the real . . .others, well, they just get creative with it.

Not to say you aren't creative in your own right, but I think you get my drift.

Anonymous said...

writing is serious business.

Anonymous said...

oh. and i'll try not to take your remarks about poets personally. lol