Sunday, January 29, 2006
Funk
A bunch of the writers on my egroup have been in a funk this week (including myself). Writing fiction is one of the few career choices I know of where people can stop working if they are having problems with their calling. Journalists have to get on with it, as do technical writers. If a surgeon feels like he just can't face the next operation, too bad. And I can just imagine what the boss would say if an engineer called in with a number funk. So why do writer's get to declare they are blocked, or in a funk? Shouldn't professional fiction writers just get on with it? And yet, if we do, will it be worth reading? If we don't, will we ever finish that next novel...
¶ 8:57 PM 
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Hi. I just discovered your blog and read through a great deal of it.
I'm a non-professional writer and composer, and my approach is to simply set a regular time for writing and do it. If I can't find anything to write about I'll compose, if I can't do that I'll blog. However, there will always be something getting done. I may not like the results of it later, but then I just discard it mercilessly. If the plot is any good, I might rewrite it later or save it as the germ of an idea for another story.
I was also grateful for your advice on how to write for Muslims. I'm writing a play with a main character who is a Muslim woman living in London. Unfortunately, my characterization is so different on every point that I'm convinced it will never have the ring of truth, so I'm shelving the play and moving on to another project. *broad grin*
Along these lines, have you ever read Jack Shaheen's Reel Bad Arabs? It's a fascinating but infuriating book about the dearth of positive or even remotely realistic portrayals of Arabs and Muslims (often treated as one and the same) in the movies.
I'm a non-professional writer and composer, and my approach is to simply set a regular time for writing and do it. If I can't find anything to write about I'll compose, if I can't do that I'll blog. However, there will always be something getting done. I may not like the results of it later, but then I just discard it mercilessly. If the plot is any good, I might rewrite it later or save it as the germ of an idea for another story.
I was also grateful for your advice on how to write for Muslims. I'm writing a play with a main character who is a Muslim woman living in London. Unfortunately, my characterization is so different on every point that I'm convinced it will never have the ring of truth, so I'm shelving the play and moving on to another project. *broad grin*
Along these lines, have you ever read Jack Shaheen's Reel Bad Arabs? It's a fascinating but infuriating book about the dearth of positive or even remotely realistic portrayals of Arabs and Muslims (often treated as one and the same) in the movies.
By the way, as a writer you might be interested by the foresight of Boccaccio who wrote a whole story regarding hypocritical acts of 'charity' with soup. I've included the relevant portion in my post about the incident on my blog.
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