Writing is going to be a job at least some times even if it is a vocation.
It just takes time getting the words down. & plenty of people have 2 jobs.
The difficulty is when it becomes a career and then the careerists move in;
and aesthetics loses out to brown-nosing and other social perversities
L
----- Original Message -----
From: "Chris Hamilton-Emery" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 14 October 2000 15:37
Subject: Re: writing as a proper job
| Is writing a vocation? A calling? I'm wondering about degrees of
commitment
| and its impact on that awful word, value, in the work. I mean folk who are
| Sunday writers (as in Sunday painters) are still able to turn out a
| masterpiece aren't they? It's not about the hours is it?
|
| It's a bit like comparing your Dad's attempt at a shed, Bob the Builder
and
| Richard Rogers. It's not an occupation either, or is it? Some turn it into
| an academic lifetime, but only in terms of secondary writing and teaching.
| Some make it a hobby. Does one's attitude devalue the poems? Is it about
| one's view of the task of writing. I mean if I say "it's a hobby for me",
is
| the work diminished? If I say "it's my life's blood", is it enhanced?
|
| Is it about application, determination? I know folk who really want to be
a
| writer and scribble everyday but I don't think they'll ever make it. But
| what do I mean by making it? We're back to value again. Then there's luck.
| And of course gifts. All of which trouble me. But a proper job? Only if
one
| has a patron I suspect. A kind of fealty. The notions of being properly
| involved make me wonder about what the rules are . . . who's in and who's
| out. It's a form of taxonomy all over again. I know I'm serious about
| writing, but what am I using as markers to determine that? "I get sick if
I
| don't write." (I don't really.) "Nothing is more important." (Rubbish.) "I
| want to leave something behind me." (Vanity.) "I can't help myself." (I
| can.)
|
| My voice dwindles. Proper. I think I'd rather be improper. And as for the
| dignity of labour: I don't feel much intrinsic value in grafting. Work is
| slavery. Being a boss (which is bleeding work) is slavery. Hidden within
| this is the belief that there is some possibility of liberty. I strongly
| suspect that one is never free. Some of us, deluded lucky beasts that we
| are, choose our own cages. The illusion of freedom comes from changing
| cages. And then death. Proper.
|
| C
|
|
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