Black Sword wrote:
WING-0 - nuts, now the pressure's on. My whole speech above me may set you off the writer's path. >_<
Not quite, actually.
I read the three entries of Writer's Life, and I have found it to be an interesting read in terms of seeing what someone who writes thinks about it.
As I have said, I don't consider myself a writer. In the case of my very, very amateur and immature storytelling, it is just a tool to allow me to learn something as basic as narrating something my brain concocts in a language that is not my own.
If we were to speak of writers I admire, I would mention Phillip K. Dick because of the fictions he created and Haruki Murakami because of how his descriptions of situations grab me and make me imagine subtle things like gestures as small as a finger twitching or the look of someone's eyes to describe what that person is feeling or thinking. Another one would be the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges because of many of his stories, with "El Libro de Arena" which means "The Book of Sand" in English as a personal favorite. So yes, I actually have a few writers I admire. Fortunately, I'm not an illiterate.
Another part that I liked in that blog entry is the link to The Elements of Style. The reason being that as pointed (in order) by Tanith, Benoit and Augmented Fourth with a very high degree of elegance and patience, I have problems with those very things William Strunk Jr. deals with in his book. That should be something that could help me develop my linguistic skills further instead of just speaking and writing like a common thug in this tongue, despite of being able to speak and write with (surprise!) elegance in my own.
So if you were talking about probably driving me away with that, no. I would like to add that my humble fanfic is a learning platform for me. I want to be able to tell a story in a language that is not mine, writing it primarily in that tongue. Of course, I must add, the central idea is to entertain a very particular type of people. People who can laugh at fart jokes, dangling blue penises and someone scratching his testicles and being misunderstood. It's acquired knowledge for me that in order to do something, one must try to do it. That is precisely my intention. I want to practice my English in a way that forces me to learn more about the language instead of a simple colloquial usage, and why not? Make someone laugh once or twice. Of course, I don't intend it to be just toilet humor...
If I could describe situations better than Murakami, create more vivid fictions than Dick or pull someone's attention with suspense more effectively than Borges, that'd be quite nice, which is why I want to learn from them. I however don't delude myself. Those are people who devoted (or still do) their entire lives to the craft, while my attention is centered on a different type of academic pursuit. Still, why not learn from them that way, with the outmost respect for their persons and careers? After all, there is this one quote I love from an old show I just don't remember the name of... "If you want to punch a guy on the nose, aim at the back of his head."
But getting back to the topic of your article (If I didn't misunderstand because of my lack of sleep and the author is someone else), you simply take pride and detail your thoughts on your craft, just as much as I take pride in mine. I can't count the times science has been butchered in TV and movies, when a little of advice could have corrected any later problems, such as the misconception that scientists are like the character of Doc Brown from Back to the Future, Doctor Frankenstein or what have you...
TL;DR, I read the thing. I am still learning and I'm not an idiot to think myself a freaking Shakespeare of dirty comedy. While I'm still shy and quite sensitive of criticism, the three people who have helped me reading my stuff have been nothing short of FRAKIN COOL and their time hasn't gone to waste in my learnings. Yes... That last word was intended like that... =P