Writing for Fun and Exercise

I write for my own pleasure, and, hopefully, for the small enjoyment it may provide my family and friends.  However, there are times when my thoughts turn to submission (send it in) -- but not yet, anyway.

As I have begun to think of myself as a writer (three books and a Blog), I have become aware that writing, like most every other endeavor in today’s American life, has its own vocabulary, language, associations, groups, workshops, conferences, how-to-books, newsletters and trade magazines.  It’s own a little society, operating in its own little world.

The language of writing and the writer has begun to work its way into my conversations and thoughts.  I can’t help it.  I want to at least appear to be a member of the literary personhood (politically correct word as opposed to brotherhood, sisterhood, fraternity, sorority, etc.). However, there are things about the language of the writing crowd (politically correct again) that I don’t like very much. I write for fun and exercise.  I guess I’m not serious enough about my writing to be caught sitting at some writer’s workshop with a group of Ernest Hemingway or Maya Angelo “wannabes” with their little round, steel-rimmed glasses (both regular and sun) discussing the artistic, intellectual, elitism of being a writer.  “My inner-most thoughts flow from my soul through the magic wand of my pen and onto a tear-stained page that blankly stares into my chocolate brown, tear-filled eyes.”  I don’t think so!  I write on a computer, and the only tears in my eyes are from the eye-strain caused by staring at the screen too long.

I am just not smart enough to be an artistic, intellectual, elitist writer, or reader for that matter.  Must all writing carry a deeper intellectual meaning beneath its surface?  I guess I’m an intellectual surfer who falls off the board if the water (or something) gets too deep.  Let me give you an example of some writing that is beyond my intellectual depth.  In the 1992 book of the winners of the prestigious O. Henry Awards was the following quote from one of the winners about his prize-winning short story:  “For me a story is a narrative space framed by formal intervals.  In the case of this story, I am principally interested in a rather loose triangle composed through the relations of a pressing, needful, musical, unrelated speech and two silences: That of assured capability fallen into kind of entropic chaos, and that of the explosive insight of creative vision.”    HUH?????

Isn’t there something to be said in the art of the written word about clarity of thought in the understandable English of most of us less-gifted dweebs in the general population?  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not putting down this higher level of writing, but it’s not for me, actually it’s beyond me.  Writing at an artistic level maybe self-fulfilling masturbation to some, but they probably won’t make a very good living at it.  However, artistic, intellectual writing is not about money, unless, of course, it’s government funding.  I think elitist writer-talk is high-falutin’, haughty, high-brow, uppity, look down your nose and, well -- snooty.  That’s it, -- snooty.  Writers and their vocabulary can be snooty.  Writers only talk snooty, they dress distinctively un-snooty, unless, of course, they are in the company of others of their genre, then their dress is distinctively snooty and the rest of us are dressed distinctively, un-snooty.  Snooty can be confusing.  I am a plain English, un-snooty type guy.  I think?  I guess I have confused myself.

There is even a book that helps us use and understand the words of the writer’s language -- The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms -- snooty.   Take some of the words we writers like to use. Memoir -- French -- snooty.  Avant garde -- French -- snooty.  Genre -- French -- snooty.  French words used in English conversation are snooty. 

A memoir is an autobiography or life stories of the person writing it.  How about plain, “I’m writing my life story.”?  Rather than a haughty, affected, “I’m writing a mem-whah.

Avant garde represents leading-edge, new stuff.  I can’t think of a quote -- avant garde is too new and avant garde.

Genre is a style or type of art form.  For our purposes we use it to describe the kind of writing we do.  The use of the word genre in writing circles is like a zodiac pick-up line at a poetry reading.  “Hi, what’s your genre?”  (the hoped for answer, erotica (snooty Latin word for dirty writing) is seldom heard, however).  Genre is my least favorite snooty writer word.  What’s wrong with calling a piece what it is: fiction, micro fiction, flash fiction, sudden fiction, non-fiction, creative non-fiction (oxy-moron), essays, articles (newspaper and magazine), biography, autobiography, life stories, plays, (stage, screen and television), poetry, prose, short stories, novels, novellas, free-writing, journaling, journalism, technical, copy, freelance, -- the list of plain English words about writing and types of writing goes on and on. 

How about a simple, “What do you write?”  “I write ______.”  (Fill in the blank in plain English).

One of the most common terms in the language of both writer and reader is the word piece.  “She wrote a wonderful piece.”  “Did you see the piece in the paper?”  I used piece in the above paragraph.  A piece includes all of the above mentioned genres (the snooty word creeps in to my conversation no matter how I try to be un-snooty.  I guess that makes me a “real” writer -- snooty).

Why do we use the generic word piece to describe just about everything we write instead of simple straight forward terms like articles, essays, short stories, book, etc.?  Here’s my explanation of the word piece in its literary sense.  Piece, as in piece of pie .  A piece of pie is a slice of pie.  A piece is a slice of life.

That’s my piece and I’m sticking to it!

Now, if you’ll excuse me I must go and pick up my new glasses.

Samuel C. Arnold,
Writer