You know, someone decided to give me some advice on the art of writing the other day. He proceeded to tell me that I should only write about things that I know. Well, I guess I’m shit out of luck. I’m not bragging or boasting but I can tell you that I’ve lived a fairly uneventful life. I found my soul mate at the ripe old age of 15 and we are still blissfully married. I’m a Vietnam era veteran by just 16 days so I enjoyed all the military benefits but never had to fire my M16 at anything more than a paper target. I have a few ailments that come with age but nothing serious. I’ve always worked in jobs that payed far above what my education should have allowed. As a child, I was never molested, abused, abandoned, tortured by terrorists or lost in the woods to be raised by spotted owls. I come from a very large and very loving family.
Sure, I’ve made a few mistakes along the way but nothing that I have to look back on with regret. So what would I have to write about that might have any significance to the rest of mankind?
Then I remembered, Tolkien really never lived in Middle earth and Bradbury had never been to Mars. Gene Roddenberry couldn’t have piloted the Enterprise, JK Rowling never attended Hogwarts and Stephanie Meyer didn’t hobnob around with vampires and werewolves?”
So stop trying to please everyone else and do what you feel is the right thing for you.
Exactly!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks
LikeLike
A good imagination helps
LikeLiked by 1 person
Exactly, Jerry! You’ve got it in one. We’d be going nowhere without the spur, the inspiration, of our imagination.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thanks Roland…As you can tell, I paid him no heed.
LikeLike
I’m curious. What prompted the “write what you know” advice?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Liz, it was just a guy at a get together. We were discussing inspiration and overcoming writer’s block.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I see. I was just curious about whether it had been said in response to a particular story in a workshop or critique situation.
LikeLiked by 1 person
No, but I was a member of a poetry group and someone told me that I was a “journalistic’ writer and what I wrote was not poetry. The poem was titled Winter in the Park posted on 8/21 https://thebackyardpoet.com/2017/08/21/winter-in-the-park/
LikeLiked by 1 person
This person must have a very narrow view of what poetry is. Your poem didn’t read as journalistic to me at all.
LikeLiked by 1 person
You get those people who think they know everything because they have published one poem. Of course, two years ago, when I first started this bothered me a lot. I’ve since learned that ‘you can’t please everyone’
LikeLiked by 1 person
I don’t know that it’s a matter of pleasing people, so much as finding readers who are willing to set aside their preconceived notions of what poetry is or isn’t and approach each poem on its own terms.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Very true. Because poetry is fluid and must flow freely.
LikeLiked by 1 person