Category: Writing

AKMA wrote on authenticity and referenced me in his work. He wrote:

Or to put it another way (because I admire Shelley, and I want to share out my links), if we were to find out that the Burning Bird’s phoenix-song were very carefully composed, to convey the effect of having been written by someone very much like the Shelley we imagine when we read her heartfelt, sometimes very pointed, clarion-calls — would that be inauthentic? What degree of deliberation and painstaking composition disqualify a recording or literary work from the category of “authenticirty”? A brilliantly gifted writer, after all, may well be able to depict impassioned spontaneity with utterly convincing prose. Is it only authentic if she really felt it?

I am honored that AKMA included me, as I have always admired him tremendously. His writing is like a mirror with which to see oneself and decide if what we see is really what we want to continue seeing.

Is it only authentic if she really felt it. Such depth hidden in simple words. How do we answer? How do I answer?

I do enjoy writing about technology, and yes I am an impassioned warrier for openness among our peers, and equality among our ranks. I’m not afraid to go toe to toe, and have made friends, and lost them, doing so. I am passionate; there is no fakery there–no practiced art of writing in order to deceive. I believe, with all my heart, in the cause for women, gay rights, and the struggle to save what little we can of the environment.

I reject that we are seen, too frequently, as either a commodity to be sold; or a patsy to buy what others are selling.

I like debate, and though I am not fireproof, can usually stand the heat. More so now than in the past, but that’s because I’ve become somewhat tempered these last few years. I like to think I am even and just and though I will blast the tiger to save the kitten, I will swat the kitten when its greedy.

I know, though, that I have also hurt in my single minded pursuit of rightness. I have been thoughtless. I have been too quick to temper. And I have been vain.

Is this writing authentic? Is it, as the dictionary would claim, real and genuine? Yes, because I don’t write what I don’t believe–that depth of feeling that AKMA references.

No, though, because it is not complete.

This is an environment composed almost exclusively of words. They may be written, they may be spoken, and they might even be converted into images or code and thus need to be interpreted, but ultimately this is about words.

Some of the words I like, others I don’t. Some of the words may incite me to anger and despair, while others inspire and entertain. I have changed my mind based on words; I may have even changed minds with words of my own.

There are people who can wield words like a master painter his brush, or play words like a concert pianist her piano. The rest of us, we’re usually happy if we can write a post without someone pointing out spelling errors. Oh, and don’t get me started on punctuation and something or other dangling.

I have written words that have sparked a frenzy of feeding and I think wistfully of Amazonian rivers and small, busy fish with very sharp teeth. Other times, the words lay there on the page, not even a quiver of regret to mark their passing. (And one is never so glad, at times like these, to see the reverse chronology in action. I have been known, a time or two, to hasten the end of such words–a mercy killing, if you will.)

I’ve also had my words thrown in my face, slapped across my cheeks like a glove beckoning me to a duel. Sometimes I’ve picked up the sharpest of my words and have cried, “Have at ye!” Other times, though, I wander, confused, through the jumble of scratches on the page and think at it, “What did you do? What the hell did you do?”

My favorite words are the the ones we skip across the page like a rock across a pond; only exposing our selves when the word is in the air. Ha! Try reading these words through an aggregator.

I never tire of working with words. I never tire of reading others work with words. I do weary, though, of reading, “Oh, but I didn’t mean that…” when one is challenged, because its easier to orphan the words than acknowledge or stand by them.

Lynn Truss, the author of the acclaimed Eats, Shoots, and Leaves is interviewed in the New York Times about her new book, Talk to the Hand: The Utter Bloody Rudeness of the World Today, or Six Good Reasons to Stay Home and Bolt the Door. The interviewer, Deborah Solomon, does a marvelous job capturing the uniqueness that is Truss, but without fawning all over her. In fact, you come away with the feeling that Ms. Solomon was a bit bewildered by Truss, and after reading the interview you can understand why.

In her new book Truss takes on an impolite society, though she admits she’s focusing more on Britain than all of the English-speaking place as a whole. (Should that have had a comma?) The Times links to the first chapter of both her books, so you can see what wonderful wit she has, though her second book is more in the nature of a humorist essay than a how-to. (Was that dash correct?)

As for the author herself, it’s odd but she strikes me as the type to read this type of book and then toss it aside as so much rubbish. Which, if you think on it, will probably make this a good book. (Should I have used a semi-colon? How about the use of ‘will’–too passive?)

My favorite scene from the interview was when Truss autographs one of her novels for Solomon, who then is walking about Brighton and happens to run into an American author, Michael Cunningham, on tour for his newest book. She chats with him, mentions who she’s interviewing and then shows him the book she’s given including the inscription. It reads:

With all best wishes, Lynne Truss.

What follows is classic literature. The author, Cunningham:

…ripped the page from its spine, crumpled it into a ball and popped it into his mouth. He stood there chewing it, as if it were a piece of tough meat, perhaps realizing for the first time that paper is not easily pulverized.

“I don’t know what came over me,” he said a few moments later, after he had removed the page from his mouth. “The inscription was so bland and generic, all I could think of to do is rip it out. She had just talked to someone for four hours, someone who had come from another continent. Writing is her business. She can come up with something a little more exciting.”

Sometimes I think the price of fame, or an attempt at fame, is that you have to invent yourself as a persona and then lock yourself into it for all time. So from this moment on Truss is the woman who writes on punctuation and manners (and all this invokes in one mentally), which means she must turn on the telly to watch cricket when interviewed and have elderly cats; while Cunningham is the type of rips pages out of books and then attempts to eat them because the writing is so offensive. Before either was well known, I imagine both would think the behaviors daft.

Regardless, it’s an accomplished interview, and the first chapters of both books are a good, fun, and innocuous Sunday read. (Was/were there too many commas in that sentence?) The only quibble I had is Solomon’s classification of the return of the shrew as exemplified by Truss and others, such as Anne Robinson from the BBC. I, for one, have never equated this behavior–blunt, mercilessly witty, irascible, and a scold –with being a woman. In fact, the closest you’ll come to ‘shrew’ in weblogging, in my opinion, is the now long gone Mark Pilgrim; the second closest is Joe Clark–and this is a compliment to both, as I consider ‘shrew’ to a good thing if Truss is considered one. (Too many dashes? Not enough?)

I haven’t read Eats, Shoots, and Leaves and should check it out at the library. I’ll have to hold on Talk to the Hand… for a time afterwards, as I have a feeling a little Truss goes a long way.