I’m curious about the bad habits you mentioned. My daily routines involve lots of correspondence, note taking, and programming, and I’ve always assumed it was simply good to build high productivity habits around things of known utility in the area of “text emission”. I’d be very interested to hear the details of a theory that explained a connection between “daily writing practices” and “an expert’s abstract conception of good writing habits”.
The terrible habits I had were listed as follows. “Writing for the sound of it” This was later explained as writing the way I talk or writing to sound like speech and eschewing the more visually oriented prose. “Getting into the habit of appealing to the wrong audience.” This is a pretty fair criticism and I do admit my style became more academic writing less for popular consumption. I cared less about a clever turn of phrase or a good hook than I cared about fitting the tone set out for the work. This led to the odd an unenviable position of one of my later teachers saying they would like to keep some of my work for their personal circulation and to use as class lecture notes but saying under no circumstances should such things be said in respectable journals. Finally, and the reason I severed my connection to the keys was that I wrote too casually and fluidly. Most people when they write for a paper or some sort of formal arrangement sit down with a deadly and serious purpose. They make their keyboard their altar and put themselves in an almost sacred mindset. My words were trash, wrappers in which to convey sticky and sweet ideas and I thought nothing of filling a page with empty calories. I was overly comfortable and familiar with writing and so perhaps did not place the thought and ceremony I should into every painfully wrought sentence. Or maybe, as with many English professors, she was a frustrated writer and disliked the fact that I, an uneducated plebeian, taking beginners English at nearly age 30 had written and sold a book and she hadn’t. Either way this was one of my first critiques given by someone who was supposedly judging me on some empirical merit as opposed to whether or not they personally would buy my words and so it struck home.
Interesting and appreciated! Especially since I may have both of those going on with my own writing...
The latter critique sounds like “practice makes permanent” advice combined with particular taste about the quality of one’s typical audience and your discourse intentions, which makes sense to me. LW seems to appreciate a sort of moralistic criticism, for example, and unless I consciously recalibrate, I’ve noticed that creeping into text where that’s not helpful. I think I’m going to have to think about this one...
The former critique, curiously, is something I’ve tried to do on purpose out of active preference since I was in about the 4th grade. My speech sometimes acquires elements of the formality of text, and I try to bring the bounce and emotion of speech to my text where appropriate. I like text like that. And speech like that. Was there a reason this habit was supposed to be bad, or was it just a “reflexive prescriptivism”?
I tried googling and found that “writing for the sound of it” occurs in three places on the internet: this very thread, here, and here. My impression from context is that it has something to do with issues of status, tone-matching, and accidentally pushing people’s buttons or falling on the wrong side of someone’s textual shibboleth detector by accident? If you strip the personality out, I’d expect text to escape undue scrutiny, which seems helpful in some contexts, but if the personality survives or is exaggerated I’d expect strong reactions both ways, which seems helpful in other contexts. I went through a Tom Robbins phase in high school out of love for his ridiculous prose and vivid descriptions, but I know there are people who hate his stories for exactly the same elements.
I would like add, one should write every day and get vicious dispassionate feedback if one wishes to improve. Otherwise you are shouting in an empty canyon for the echo of your own voice.
I’m curious about the bad habits you mentioned. My daily routines involve lots of correspondence, note taking, and programming, and I’ve always assumed it was simply good to build high productivity habits around things of known utility in the area of “text emission”. I’d be very interested to hear the details of a theory that explained a connection between “daily writing practices” and “an expert’s abstract conception of good writing habits”.
The terrible habits I had were listed as follows. “Writing for the sound of it” This was later explained as writing the way I talk or writing to sound like speech and eschewing the more visually oriented prose. “Getting into the habit of appealing to the wrong audience.” This is a pretty fair criticism and I do admit my style became more academic writing less for popular consumption. I cared less about a clever turn of phrase or a good hook than I cared about fitting the tone set out for the work. This led to the odd an unenviable position of one of my later teachers saying they would like to keep some of my work for their personal circulation and to use as class lecture notes but saying under no circumstances should such things be said in respectable journals. Finally, and the reason I severed my connection to the keys was that I wrote too casually and fluidly. Most people when they write for a paper or some sort of formal arrangement sit down with a deadly and serious purpose. They make their keyboard their altar and put themselves in an almost sacred mindset. My words were trash, wrappers in which to convey sticky and sweet ideas and I thought nothing of filling a page with empty calories. I was overly comfortable and familiar with writing and so perhaps did not place the thought and ceremony I should into every painfully wrought sentence. Or maybe, as with many English professors, she was a frustrated writer and disliked the fact that I, an uneducated plebeian, taking beginners English at nearly age 30 had written and sold a book and she hadn’t. Either way this was one of my first critiques given by someone who was supposedly judging me on some empirical merit as opposed to whether or not they personally would buy my words and so it struck home.
Interesting and appreciated! Especially since I may have both of those going on with my own writing...
The latter critique sounds like “practice makes permanent” advice combined with particular taste about the quality of one’s typical audience and your discourse intentions, which makes sense to me. LW seems to appreciate a sort of moralistic criticism, for example, and unless I consciously recalibrate, I’ve noticed that creeping into text where that’s not helpful. I think I’m going to have to think about this one...
The former critique, curiously, is something I’ve tried to do on purpose out of active preference since I was in about the 4th grade. My speech sometimes acquires elements of the formality of text, and I try to bring the bounce and emotion of speech to my text where appropriate. I like text like that. And speech like that. Was there a reason this habit was supposed to be bad, or was it just a “reflexive prescriptivism”?
I tried googling and found that “writing for the sound of it” occurs in three places on the internet: this very thread, here, and here. My impression from context is that it has something to do with issues of status, tone-matching, and accidentally pushing people’s buttons or falling on the wrong side of someone’s textual shibboleth detector by accident? If you strip the personality out, I’d expect text to escape undue scrutiny, which seems helpful in some contexts, but if the personality survives or is exaggerated I’d expect strong reactions both ways, which seems helpful in other contexts. I went through a Tom Robbins phase in high school out of love for his ridiculous prose and vivid descriptions, but I know there are people who hate his stories for exactly the same elements.
I’m also curious. It flabbergasts me that someone would think not practicing writing is better writing practice than practicing writing.
Also, every other writer I’ve respected has given the advice that one should write every day if one wishes to improve.
I would like add, one should write every day and get vicious dispassionate feedback if one wishes to improve. Otherwise you are shouting in an empty canyon for the echo of your own voice.