12 Comments to “What William Tully Said … About Great Writers and Great Bloggers”

1. December 6th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
   Richard Reeve said

   Giving yourself permission to do the very thing that conveys…or as Creeley pitched to Olson “Form is nothing but the extension of content.” I could follow strict grammar and not get one reader to the end of the sentence.
   Yet through snippets…I might…the unexpected…like a stone skipping. Take teaching a child to skip stones for the first time. It’s the arm mechanics that creates the trajectory of the content. So in agreement with what’s above, I’d rather read the trajectory of a great thinker than a great writer.

2. December 6th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
   ME Liz Strauss said

   Hi Richard!
   I’m thinking we should call great thinkers great writers and have it both ways.

3. December 6th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
   Kathy @ Virtual Impax said

   Liz - I’m surprised how many people expect to be a “great writer” or a “great blogger” right out of the gate.

   “A great writer, a great blogger, gets to be one by doing to it.”

   Amen -Amen-Amen!

4. December 6th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
   ME Liz Strauss said

   Hi Kathy,
   We’re all guitar heroes too!

5. December 6th, 2008 at 6:24 pm
   Richard Reeve said

   Yes: to that point of both ways, I agree now that I ponder it more. Lately I’ve stumbled upon a few amazing minds that are a bit tortured in their delivery.

6. December 6th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
   ME Liz Strauss said

   Ah Richard,
   After I write my comment, I was thinking about a quote I love …

   Writing is thinking made visible.

7. December 7th, 2008 at 3:51 am
   Lucretia Pruitt said

   I’m thinking about this one.

   So long ago I’m afraid to mention it, back when I was in college the first time, but still majoring in English & Theater, I thought myself very fortunate to get into a poetry workshop that was ‘audition only.’

   The coveted 15 spots were applied for the semester before and every applicant had to turn in a portfolio of 10 poems to be considered. Competition was very fierce out of the 300+ applications they got every semester.

   I was thrilled to get in as a Sophomore because I’d been told that usually only Juniors or Seniors got in. I was terrified that somehow I wouldn’t be able to live up to it.

   And then we spent week after week “writing in the method of the great —” Black Mountain School of Poetry, Beat Poets, Shakespearean Sonnets… you name it, every week was a torturous study of how others wrote and an attempt to mimic it.

   Frustrated, half way through the semester after attempting to write “as if we were channeling Ginsberg’s Howl” I lost it. I submitted my own work. The professor thought I was joking. I explained that if I had to copy a beat poet I’d much rather write in the form of Ferlinghetti or Kerouac than Ginsberg whom I believed in serious need of an editor - but that I didn’t take the seminar to find out how well I could mimic someone else’s voice but to further my own. I took a stand. I received an F on that week and was told that if I did not successfully submit a sonnet the next week, I would not be passing the class.

   I wish I had kept what I turned in. Hindsight makes me laugh to think of the fact that she couldn’t flunk me.
   But all I remember was the opening couplet:

   “Assigned a Shakespearean sonnet.
   Told my grade depends on it.”

   I have to say, I agree whole-heartedly that we find our voices solely within ourselves. Mine, despite an over-use of random punctuation, occasionally has a sense of humor.

   Sorry this got long, but as always, you inspire me!

8. December 7th, 2008 at 7:01 am
   ME Liz Strauss said

   Ah Lucretia,
   That spirit is what we need more of. Too bad the “systems” that we have in our schools and our companies — the ones that are made to support managing large groups — seem to squash the life and creativity out of the individual. …

   I wonder, had she said here’s a body of his work find the commonalities and the structure that are typically Ginsberg wouldn’t she have reached the same goal?

9. December 7th, 2008 at 7:32 am
   Richard Reeve said

   Liz,
   Thanks for pointing out your thinking made visible…and ‘thinking’ if we make it ‘mind’ or ’soul’ made visible…then we can reach those of us that are not so rationally inclined.

   Luretia,
   I agree with Liz, that’s a wonderful addition. Really glad to meet you in this comment.

10. December 14th, 2008 at 11:33 am
    William Tully said

    Wow. I said that? (someone’s been digging in the archives!)

    I’ve taken a bit of a hiatus from my blog this year for some reason (crappy first half of year, busy as heck second half - that’s the excuse I’m currently going with), and getting back into writing for myself is quite the experience.

    What I’ve discovered is that the voice I still write with is somewhat the same, yet the tone has changed quite a bit.

    I still believe that the greatest writer is someone who delivers their content as close as possible to the ideal way you will identify with it if, you couldn’t write it yourself.

    Very much of it is still dependent on the actual content and the relateability of it all, yet if it is something that you deem ‘worthy’ of reading, the delivery/voice will have significant impact on it.

    Usually we give up on writers because their content changes - the voice is still there and the writing is still quite good, yet it is the content that shifted for THEM, and may not be what we are looking for anymore.

    If their style of writing hasn’t (dramatically) changed, I believe that we still carry that which we were first impressed by with us as we craft our own voice and style.

    Personally I’d take an Eric Spitznagel over a William Shakespeare any day, however, if you’re the one willing to step out and string words in your own voice, with your own meaning, and your own value-add to those reading it (optional) - then you’re already a great writer and further ahead than those who are too afraid of what others might think.

11. January 21st, 2009 at 8:57 am
    YES WE DO! How Will You Begin? - Liz Strauss at Successful Blog - Thinking, writing, business ideas . . . You’re only a stranger once. said

    [...] so for Robyn, for Lucretia Pruitt, who surely would have written far better sonnet had she chosen to, and for all of us, I did. YES WE DO! When, in wonder of new life in my arms, I [...]

12. January 31st, 2009 at 7:36 pm
    Sher Matsen said

    This is one of the best posts I have read in some time. I love the attack on the archives. It’s great to look back at what has been said before.