Tag Archives: writing

Bookshelf – Writers & Lovers, Lily King

Posted on by
Reply

All of us who labor in media or the arts know someone like Casey Peabody, a talented writer (or photographer or painter) who swirls in the eddies of unfulfilled dreams, seemingly stranded as success and relationships dissolve in the passing currents.

In “Writers and Lovers,” a sometimes baffling, often entertaining, and ultimately moving tale of finding creative authenticity and discovering the difference between love and need, Casey Peabody struggles. Burdened with student loans, she waitresses through double shifts. Grieved by her mother’s sudden death, she tears up with regularity. Deceived in love, she vacillates between two suitors, one who offers comfort and security, the other a chance at something unique. At 31, she feels her sell-by date approaching.

The perspective is unblinkingly female, and men are not seen well – overbearing, dishonest, clueless, insecure. One of Peabody’s beaus, for example, is a successful novelist who frets about the smallness of the venue for a book-release event. “I am forty-seven years old. I was supposed to be reading in auditoriums by now,” he laments. Casey’s thought bubble responds: “Nearly every guy I’ve dated believed they should already be famous, believed that greatness was their destiny and they were already behind schedule. … I thought I was just choosing delusional men. Now I understand it’s how boys are raised to think, how they are lured into adulthood. I’ve met ambitious women, driven women, but no woman has ever told me that greatness was her destiny.”

The storytelling itself is both clever and conversational, with dialog worthy of being eavesdropped. Here is Casey …

  • … rejecting a potential date: “I can’t go out with a guy who’s written eleven and half pages in three years. That kind of thing is contagious.”
  • … wondering what killed her mother: “Was it a pulmonary embolism? From the long plane flight? That’s what my brother’s boyfriend, Phil, thinks. But he’s an ophthalmologist.”

Beyond the banter of Casey’s inner voices, and despite some passages that overly linger on artistic angst, “Writers and Lovers” is at once fun to read and, more deeply, affirming of those who reach, who don’t settle, and who persist in pursuit of dreams.

Dear Medium: Publishing is not Writing

Posted on by
Reply

Let’s get one thing clear: Writing is not publishing and publishing is not writing. To write is to transfer ideas from mind to words. To publish is to distribute those words to an audience.

Medium    To me, this is an important distinction, the difference between an act of creativity and a means of transportation. That’s why when someone refers to a piece of software or to an internet site as a “writing tool” I become perturbed.

That’s why I take issue with Medium – which I love as a reader – describing itself as “the best writing tool on the web” or when a Medium user calls it “a fantastic writing tool” or when Ev Williams, Medium’s CEO, says the company’s goal was to build “a great tool for writing.”

Sorry, folks, but Medium is not a writing tool. It is, as Medium itself proclaims, a “publishing platform for on the web?—?or anywhere?—?for words and pictures,” one “that started with the writing experience itself.”

The key words here are “publishing platform” and “writing experience.”

Digital publishing requires a distribution mechanism (software) and the one provided by Medium is certainly versatile and easy to use. Kudos for that.

Writing requires nothing other than a brain (some would argue even that is not a prerequisite) and a means to record the words. In that sense, a pencil is a “great writing tool.” As was the typewriter I used in my first reporting job and the IBM Selectric in the next one – both dropped words onto paper in rapid if sometimes erratic fashion, words that were then distributed by a “publishing platform” called a printing press.

Of course, publishing in the digital world is cheaper, quicker and – most importantly – more widely accessible than in my days as a reporter. Software and publishing platforms such WordPress and Medium and Twitter (and before that Blogger and Movable Type) removed the gatekeepers and opened the communication floodgates (for better and for worse).

Writing is the same, though. It’s still hard, it’s still difficult to get it right. The words still come out one at a time whether they’re landing on paper or on pixels. The language is the same, the rhythm as well. Occasional brilliant thoughts don’t change, nor do the more frequent clunkers.

So, thanks Medium for providing a beautiful means of sharing my thoughts, of publishing my writing and of interacting with a community of other writers and readers (all good things)?—?but whether I type those words (using my keyboard writing tool) into your lovely, clean interface they look they same as they do when I type them into a Word document or into WordPress window.