Letters from a Young Writer: The Aftermath

Back to Part 3

I’m still not sure what I expected to hear when she wrote back. Whatever it was I’m pretty sure this wasn’t it:

to anser the last part im not happy with what i make anyway because when ever i finish i think i need to add more and make it better and then even when i do finish it isint my vision of perfect and somewhere along the rode after adding it to be how i want it to be i finally just say fuck it this is how it will be so to answer that question of if thats what i really want to tell u the truth its not that big of a change

I’m not sure why I decided to give her the benefit of one more doubt. Maybe I’m stubborn that way; maybe I have a hard time admitting that sometimes people are lost beyond help. Sometimes people know their shortcomings but can’t summon up the drive to begin correcting them, but I believe in bootstraps, and sometimes you have to try, one more time.

Letters from a Young Writer, Part 3

Back to Part 2

im willing to lern im only thirteen but i want to be a great author more than anything

I spent a lot of time wondering if I should write back. My day job cuts into my writing time enough as is, and I’m not really sure I believe that she wants to improve. Particularly in fan communities, many writers will praise each other and enjoy being praised, even if their work simply doesn’t measure up. Writing is less an end and more a means for growing closer. They write for community, because humans are storytellers by nature, because they enjoy sitting around the virtual campfire.

Basically it’s a circle-jerk of the ego.

It’s too bad that I’ve never really been friendly enough for that sort of thing.

Letters from a Young Writer, Part 2

Start from part 1.

do u think u can help me with my writing?

She made it sound so easy. I don’t think she understood what she asked.

I remember a story about a pianist, supposedly Vladimir Horowitz but probably apocryphal. After a concert, it’s said that a woman came up to speak with him, amazed by how well he played. “I’d give twenty years of my life to play like that!” she gushed.

Horowitz looked pleased. “Ma’am, that’s exactly what it takes!”

Letters from a Young Writer, Part 1

Or, more realistically,
“i met u on gaia and love ur work”

This is a story about some email I got a few months ago, after I’d handed the link to Graveyard to a few people. The first one looked something like this (names excised to protect the dim):

Subject: i met u on gaia and love ur work
hi, i met u on gaia im g——— or on aim m————
after reading that link u sent me “graveyard” i really liked ur wrigting so i searched u on google and thats how i found ur site.
do u think u can help me with my writing?

Usually I’m thrilled when developing writers come to me and ask for some personal mentoring. I enjoy the opportunity to watch them develop and grow into themselves. I get to see myself make a difference, sometimes. One writer even told me that he hears me correcting him as he works. It’s quite a compliment, really, a vote of confidence, a reminder that someone out there thinks I know what I’m doing, and that I’m doing it well. I don’t get very many.

Sometimes I’m less enthusiastic. In general I like to believe that people with the benefits of computers and modern public education, for all the faults in both, ought to know the basic fundamentals of English usage. People who self-identify as writers, particularly, should have the discipline to avoid being outright idiots in that regard. I like to believe that writers coming to me for help are competent, or at least willing to meet me halfway and avoid wasting my time.

I tend to get a bit irritable when people work to undermine this basic faith.

On the other hand, I do try to give people the benefit of a doubt. As frustrating as they can be, the would-be writers who don’t grasp the fundamentals need help the most. A well-turned sentence can improve a good impression, but subliterate writing can make such a bad impression that nothing else will matter. My office regularly throws out résumés, unread, for laughable cover letters.

Part of me believes in salvation from ignorance and redemption from stupidity. Part of me believes that the effort is well-spent, that they really do want to improve. Part of me believes that, even if I don’t see any results, something I’ve said might click, a year or two later, and that I might make some small and important change.

Most of me knows that I’m a dreamer, but I still like to believe. It seems better than the alternative.

There’s plenty of time for mockery if things don’t work out.

Forward to Part 2

You Can’t Go Back to Eden

I know how to find the nexus of the universe.

If you go out walking, through cold, deserted streets, sometime between last call at the bars and last dance at the clubs, you find yourself caught in that hazy middle, between not-quite-yesterday and not-quite-tomorrow, perfectly alone. The rest of the world fades away, until nothing exists except you and your thoughts and the next square of pavement. You can bring a friend sometimes, a close one and certainly never two, and you come out enlightened, somehow, with this zennish sort of acceptance and understanding of each other. You can bring a lover, too, and that’s even better, because it doesn’t matter if the world tries to keep you apart, because the world doesn’t matter, not in there. The darkness wraps around you, like a cocoon, cold and warm, lonely and deliciously intimate, all at once, and for those fleeting hours, all that matters is the way he breathes and the way he talks, the way he fits against you, all long, soft-sheathed muscles and gentle, supple curves, but most of all the sparkle in his eyes, and the way he tries to hide just how much you mean to him, just how much he trusts you with the secrets of his life.

I spent almost every night there, with Nicky, back when I could call him mine. When he left I spent them there, alone, never trusting the girls or boys after him with that delicate, perfect place.

It’s the most beautiful place in the world, a little slice of Eden.

I don’t know if I can find my way back anymore.