The Writing Life? ~ BitterSweetLife

Friday, November 10, 2006

The Writing Life?

Scot McKnight has an article up on Writing - On the Side. His argument is pretty straightforward:

Writing can’t be done on the side because, as James Vanoosting says it, “Writing is not pedagogy but an epistemology”...

In other words, writing is a lifestyle, a way of life, a way of being, a modus operandi, a way of breathing and eating and drinking. Better yet, writing is a way of learning, a way of coming to know what someone wants to know, a way of discovering.

Writing is not something to do when everything else is cleared off the desk; no, it is something that makes order of the desk. I don’t get up wondering what I will write about, but I write about what I’m wondering. (That’s almost Chestertonian.) In other words, as Augustine spoke of “faith seeking understanding,” so writing is a pen seeking understanding.

I agree with the main drift of McKnight's argument, but I find myself wondering how to translate this idea practically - as someone who is not a professor, prominent figure, favorite nephew of a book publisher, etc. I'm unsure how the blogging game translates into "real" writing. But I do know that if I wasn't blogging, I probably wouldn't be writing on a consistent basis, so on that count, I'm coming out ahead. Maybe some more submissions to magazines/e-zines would help me dodge the "writing on the side" bullet.

Anybody else mulling this over?




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4 comments:

Charles Churchill said...

I think writing is a subset of the idea of taking words seriously. It can be more deliberate than speaking, but that's not necessarily the case - I've dashed off poems with less thought than I've given to certain verbal apologies or professions of my heart.
To me, writing is a method of thinking, but it's not the only way of doing so. Certainly, it's more permanent than the spoken word, and in crafting that perfect thought we can take hours or days or even a lifetime - as Wordsworth did with his poem The Prelude - if we wish. When you really get down to it though, the idea of a professional writer is a fairly modern concept and much of the world's greatest literature has been written by men who considered themselves a teacher or farmer or statesman or soldier. So I'm not sure that writing can't be done on the side (at least not the way I think of "on the side")
I think I'm with you Ariel, in that I will agree with Scot in this, that writing, like anything else in life worth doing well, is difficult and that a disciplined man with a disciplined mind is required to see it through.

Anonymous said...

Wow, went I went to comment, my thoughts were similar to Gymbrall's. That is, writing is merely the recording of thoughts, of ideas, of fantasies.

It is a method of preserving a part of us and frankly, appeals to the desire in all of us to be immortal.

"Look On My Blog Entries, Ye Mighty, Despair."

Cheers.

BTW, Read "The Road." Good novel. Put it at the top of the birthday stack.

Susannah said...

IMHO, blogging is writing. You're doing it, whether you're paid or not! Nice post. Love the photo of the leaf.

AJ said...

When you really get down to it though, the idea of a professional writer is a fairly modern concept and much of the world's greatest literature has been written by men who considered themselves a teacher or farmer or statesman or soldier.

I like that. I don't really consider myself a "substitute teacher," but at this point in my life I don't go around calling myself a "writer" either. So I'll hang my hat on this concept of a Guy Who Writes Sometimes While Doing Other Things to Make Money. :)

BTW, Read "The Road."

Is that another McCarthy novel? Lindsay gave me The Crossing, but I'm definitely open to more McCarthy.

blogging is writing.

It certainly can be. I try and challenge myself to write when I blog.

 

Culture. Photos. Life's nagging questions. - BitterSweetLife