Kudos for my buddy, N who made the comment, that if I've censored the BOOBS of the woman from the Twilight Zone video, just how dangerous is this blog? Touche! Which is why I adore my buddy N -- and let me just say that he is an awesome writer. Seriously.
So, that brings me to a question, if I do have boobs on my blog, don't the Blogger dudes have to insert one of those disclaimers that this blog has "adult content" and you have to be over 18 and click okay? My niece is a follower, and probably some of her friends check it out, and while I'm sure "Aunt Dawn is posting porn" would definitely get me some more hits from everywhere in cyberspace this brings up the old art vs. porn issue that never seems to die. So, I must ask myself, why am I willing to put a picture of Michelangelo's David or "The Birth of Venus" on this blog but I hesitate to show some music video ta-tas?
Pretty hypocritical of me, don't you think?
Seriously, N really does point to a larger issue:
How daring are we willing to be?
I'm originally from Asheville, and I seem to remember that way back when everyone hated Thomas Wolfe because he basically aired everyone's dirty laundry in his books [didn't he use the name Altamont for Asheville?]. Anyway, the point is, if you've got something really, really, really, good, how far are you willing to go for it? I'm not talking about critics or feedback on Amazon.com---I'm talking about airing your dirty laundry--and remember that when you open the door of yourself, you open the door to everyone who had an impact on your life.
I generally believe you should go where the art takes you. You just have to be willing to realize that it doesn't always take you where you want to go. That scares the hell out of me sometimes. A lot actually. It's kind of like the dog that chases a car and then one day thinks, "what am I going to do with this if I catch it?"
[and for the record, I use initials when describing my friends on this because some folks-- particularly those with kids--are more careful / sensitive to what is out there about them in cyberspace. Just FYI. ]
SNARKY MUSE SAYS: Ignore Dawn's chatter. She's procrastinating.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
I laughed out loud when I read N's comment yesterday - but I think this post really nails something MANY of us struggle with as writers. How dangerous are we/do we want to be, can we be?
Somewhere in the past few weeks (online, I can't recall where!) this exact discussion was going on. Telling truth as a writer.
I have always had to push myself - I have a tendency to protect my characters first, and then to protect my readers. But for a work to be transformative for either, I have to let the characters AND the readers experience the truth. Without my mollycoddling or softening it for them.
But it can be hard to make that choice. I had a writing teacher who told me to "put the characters in a room and let them have at one another." And an agent who encouraged me to let go and trust my gift for telling the truth in such a way that it made reading it a transformative experience.
For me, this is part of the writing process - if we as writers are not struggling just a little with what we're writing, we're probably not going deep enough. It should transform US first!
Thanks for a great post!
Post a Comment