Learn from the Past!

If you read good books, when you write, good books will come out of you.
Natalie Goldberg

I know as a child, had it not been for the mistakes that my parents made, would I have ever learned right from wrong. We learn from other people on the road of life, and it is through them that we decide what we’re going to do or where we’re going. Right or wrong, we’re going to step into the unknown, make a choice, and stand firm in our decision.

I read something that was quite funny yesterday from a student. “What can we learn from the ancients. Times have changed. Move on.” After I readjusted my jaw after it dropped and hung there for a spell, I replied gently, but firmly. This person wants to be a writer, but doesn’t want to learn from writers that have gone on before him/her??? How logical is that?

This person’s exact words were this and I quote: “You know what? I thought this class was to help us become better writers. Not, to learn how to intrepert writers from hundreds of years ago. Hello, times have changed. Our understanding of ancient writers is NOT going to help us attract the interest of that potential agent. Are you REALLY here to help us??? We're not here to be impressed by the accomplishments or knowlege of your experience.”

After you get over the grammatical errors, learn something quite pivotal from this statement. This person is in writing for the money. Not the knowledge they can gain from writers and accomplished writers who came before them who achieved greatness because of their skills in the writing world. How does this young student EXPECT to attract that potential agent, if that person has not gained one bit of insight from from those ancients such as James Joyce, Shakespeare, and Sorry Mr. Bradbury, but you’re thought of as an ancient tool in the writing world.

I cannot imagine a world of learning not being shaped by the thoughts and techniques of men and women who have gone on before me. I learned to write poetry, not by some new aged rapper, but from the elders in the field. First Shakespeare, Frost, Tennyson, Byron, Dickenson; just to name a few. They didn’t teach me, but reading them and dissecting their work, I gained knowledge of the flow, the artistic stance in their words, the paint they used to place a portrait in my mind. Had I not read them, where would I get my information? Knowledge? Know-how?

Are we expected to learn from the new age and times? Sure times have changed, and I haven’t seen much in the way of, for-the-better, either. So what am I to take away from the statement, “What can we learn from the ancients?” You will learn this my friend, just what your FUTURE holds!

A 'DO NOT read' post

John 17:5 And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.
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Just when you think someone cares...

Have you ever been writing until your fingers bled, anxiously anticipated sharing only to find that nobody really cares about your writing? Today I’m going to throw myself a pity party with hats, balloons, streamers and noisemakers, yeah especially noisemakers. You’re all invited to come, but no one will show, it’ll just be me, a woman and her thoughts.

I have this quote it goes something like, “Thank your readers and the critics who praise you, and then ignore them. Write for the most intelligent, wittiest, wisest audience in the universe: Write to please yourself. ~Harlan Ellison, and really that is all we’re doing because nobody really cares what you write.

We can pretend, we can read what others write, we can comment out our gazoos, or not, but what it really boils down to is, nobody gives a flying fig. Everyone cares about himself or herself, and everything else is just there, a fly on the wall being looked at ready to swat it out of the way first chance you get.

I feel my writing has been put on hold while I take care of everyone else. I throw myself into situations of aiding and forget that sometimes I am the one who needs the assistance. Does anybody care? Does anyone know that this is what’s happening to me? No, of course not because they are busy obsessing and consuming themselves with themselves. Selfishly devouring all that they can muster while a withered leaf gets tossed under the snow mound. They are a sort of self mutilating cannibal, eating and drinking of whatever it is that THEY have to
offer/want/need and forget about the lil guy or in this case, gal.

Today is the day (okay I tell myself this all the time) that I am going to put a halt to my placating of others and tend to my own needs. I’m going to be a self mutilating cannibal and consume myself, with myself, remembering those that forgot me and forgetting those that pretended to remember me.
 
Sometimes it scares me to be a writer.
 
“From the earliest records of ancient civilizations to the most recent works produced by modernity, the history of literature bears witness to the creative power of the human mind. We have before us a vast library of stories, plays, and poetry to enjoy at our leisure, but in some cases this creativity came with a price – the life of the creator.” Ketterer Brandt
 
From Hemmingway to Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf  to John Kennedy Toole all authors who decided maybe writing just wasn’t in the cards for them. The list is long, the lives are many, writers write because they love to write, they die, because maybe they were faced with cannibals too.
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From Lord of the Rings ~ J.R.R. Tolkien’s work

Sam: Do you remember the Shire, Mr. Frodo? It'll be spring soon and the orchards will be in blossom, and the birds will be nesting in the hazel thicket. And the whistle in the summer barley in the Lower fields. And eating the first of the strawberries with cream. Do you remember the taste of strawberries?
 
Frodo: No, Sam. I can't recall the taste of food, nor the sound of water, nor the touch of grass. I'm naked in the dark. There's nothing--no veil between me and the wheel of fire. I can see him with my waking eyes.