Writing - Be Yourself

I really do not have time for podcasts. I feel like I need to stop and do nothing but listen, which leaves me anxious about what is not being done. LitHub has done its Best Podcasts of 2022, and I may listen to those - when I get caught up on my work! What follows is an excerpt from Garth Greenwell on Writing Fiction like a Poet:

I have two MFAs; I am not an anti MFA person. But I do think there are dangers in workshop and things to be concerned about in workshop. Probably the most important is that the structure of workshop can suggest that success as a writer means appealing to the largest number of readers. I just don’t think that’s true. I don’t think there’s any strong book that is pleasing to everyone. Many of the books that I love best are books that seem to be pleasing to quite few people. In the education of writers, more emphasis should be put on the idea that your peculiarities and your eccentricities are the things you write into. There’s obviously this balance between working at a craft level to acquire skills that you don’t have and trying to be the broadest writer you can be, and then also diving into things that are distinctive. To some people they will seem like advantages, and to other people, they will seem like flaws, and that’s okay.

I read that as more encouragement to be you are, not what others are, when you put words on a page.

sch 12/30/22