Comments on Can Writers Be All Things To All People?

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Oh, but don't I love checking
out what you have to say, May. LOLOL

posted by Joe_Love on August 11, 2005 at 3:33 PM | link to this | reply

PS: my first comment is more patronizing than negative.

I have been tempted to send "thank you" emails or notes or whatever when an srtist has done a good job on a movie or book; however, usually that is water 'way under the bridge for active artists and it must be irritating and/or frustrating to have people trying to get into a conversation about something you started in 1975, finally got onto the screen (after three nightmarish years) in 1987, and was released in 1990 with editing you had no control over.

And if the writer has a problem with these little time trips, imagine being the actor hauled up like this!!

As Sir Alec Guiness was rumored to tell Star Wars fans approaching him, "It was just a job and you really must get a life".

 

 

Or as "Terrence Mann" said in the movie "Field of Dreams":

"I know you...You're from the Sixties!....So how's this...'PEACE-LOVE-DOPE!'? Now get the hell outta here!!!".

 

(Did I really punctuate that?)

posted by majroj on August 10, 2005 at 6:57 AM | link to this | reply

Write the article you want, then make Version Two a commercial one.

I see my magazines publishing parallel articles al the time (between Nat Geog, Smithsonian, and SciAm, sometimes you will see the same subject brought up in each one within a month, sometimes the same month. Get another name and pitch the better one to a poorly-paying and/or higher-brow pub?

posted by majroj on August 10, 2005 at 6:49 AM | link to this | reply

account over drawn
its very easy to be stretched in too many directions, it can be really hard to give enough time and space and nurturing to yourself.

posted by MsVision on August 10, 2005 at 6:46 AM | link to this | reply

Well said MayB...

posted by NCwriter on August 10, 2005 at 5:57 AM | link to this | reply

I do like that last sentence!

posted by Ca88andra on August 10, 2005 at 5:12 AM | link to this | reply

A rolling stone gathers no moss. Trying to learn everything makes an expert of nothing.

Ann

posted by A-and-B on August 10, 2005 at 2:28 AM | link to this | reply

You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but some fools can't tell the time and sometimes the sum of all fools at tea-time is equal to the square on the opposite two sides at the fall of the sun.

All in all, MayB says it simpler.

posted by _dave_says_ack_ on August 10, 2005 at 1:38 AM | link to this | reply

It seems one would get lost
trying to be too many people.

posted by Maerdi on August 9, 2005 at 10:29 PM | link to this | reply

MayB
I just noticed in Temple's blog that you told her "All will be well"....that is in a meditation from a book I read all the time....it is the only meditation I used, and I wondered if you happen to use it as well...just curious....   it goes.. All will be well...And, all will be well....And, all manner of things will be well.  BTW....I have learned via a heart attack and many wrinkles, that I cannot be all things to all people...still find myself trying - and when I catch  myself, I laugh at my foolishness.....when, when will I ever stop trying? It is like an automatic reflex to still try!

posted by Krisles on August 9, 2005 at 9:59 PM | link to this | reply

I am torn Majroj between expecting the best from people and understanding the limitations of humans. I am currently writing a story about a national industry and am only too aware that it is not very good which sadly means it should fit in fine with contemporary journalism

posted by Azur on August 9, 2005 at 8:37 PM | link to this | reply

Will readers let writers be less than all things?
Especially when they show up nitpicking something you wrote elven years ago and didn't particularly like then?

posted by majroj on August 9, 2005 at 8:23 PM | link to this | reply

nice metaphor at the end

posted by Vanidad on August 9, 2005 at 8:12 PM | link to this | reply

You got that right, MayB.

posted by WindTapper on August 9, 2005 at 6:25 PM | link to this | reply

MayB--
Not just writers...no HUMAN can be all things to all people. And what did that writer's mothering skills have to do with the magazine and her writing prowess??

posted by Julia. on August 9, 2005 at 6:09 PM | link to this | reply

If you try to please everybody you end up pleasing nobody.
I write what I write and I love what I write.  Some other people do, too, and the rest love someone else's writing.  Do the math and it all evens out, I think.  I also failed math 3 years straight in high school...

posted by mark2556 on August 9, 2005 at 6:00 PM | link to this | reply

Hmmm...
Good points.

posted by SomeoneElse on August 9, 2005 at 5:50 PM | link to this | reply