Friday, September 6, 2019

Compassion for all writers including yourself

quote from page 8 of "Writing Life Stories" by Bill Roorbach near the top:

"To compound the problem, partners and friends and parents are caught up in the old myth about talent: You either have it or you don't, and there's no sense in struggling along if your first efforts aren't Shakespeare or (more to the point, since we are talking about memoir here) Anne Dillard or John Hersey or Mary Carr or Frank McCourt.

So, often what's missing is compassion: compassion for the poor soul who turns to writing after a day of less satisfying work; even while those around him play; compassion for the learner, too, the person who at any age sits down to write thinking she already has what it takes, only to discover, as all good writers continually do, that there's still a lot to learn; compassion, in the end, for you gentle writer, you yourself."

I had this book next to my bed stand likely because it was required for a Creative writing class maybe in the early 2000s in college I took. And when I read this passage I thought to myself, "I have to share these ideas because if you see yourself at all as a writer or storyteller, this would be good to observe what is being said here.

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