On the Art of Writing

 On the Art of Writing

Undoubtedly one should always learn to write with a sense of artistry, whether they are writing fiction or non-fiction. Also, one should learn to work to develop one’s own art. Never try to be like another writer. So learn to express your own vision. Furthermore, a person needs to believe that their own art has value, so they should learn to be their own biggest fan, as well as their own biggest critic. In fact, a person should be more brutal in judging their own work than in judging anyone else’s.

Of course, having a sense of style is important in artistry, therefore we all have writers we gravitate towards that inspire us in this regard. And speaking for myself, my top five favorite writers of fiction in descending order are: Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Robert E. Howard, John Milius, George Orwell, and Philip K. Dick. I love them all, immensely, yet I also love many other fiction writers too.

Writing is an amazing art form. Moreover, it is the art form that most suits my temperament, which I would describe as intellectual, scientific, and philosophical. Yet, I believe too, that one can be just as emotional, and full of feeling in story writing as one can in other art forms such music or dance. Writing has very few limits. However, it is the best art form when it comes to conveying all kinds of ideas combined with emotion and feeling. For it always has a strong intellectual aspect to it that can move the reader with ideas in an emotional way when written by a masterful writer.

Thus there is not much that cannot be granted to a good writer that has a lot of things to express to the rest of the world. Nonetheless, a writer also needs a lot of confidence to meticulously work on the correctness of what they are doing, as it can be very easy to mess up and lose hope in their own artistic visions. Moreover, a writer should never be afraid of hard work, because no one else will ever be able to produce what they are capable of, and so they need to do that work themselves.

Now in the pursuit of developing any kind of literary artistry we find ourselves confronted by an endless myriad of choices that have to be made of a stylistic sort, and new choices have to be made repeatedly. Therefore this stylistic choice making I am mentioning is an endless interaction with all the work intended to be produced since one does not get much of a rest when this process is occurring. At times, we may doubt some of the choices we have already made on past projects. However, we must learn to accept them because the past is gone and we need to move onwards.

Indeed, originality is extremely important in artistry; it is better to innovate than to follow. There is very little artistry involved in copying others. Yet, one should aim for excellence too. Thus you should never think that creating something is just a matter of getting the work out into the world. For when you are creating, your mind needs to be focused on constantly improving on what you have already done before. So do not settle on anything less than excellence. Analyze every feature.

Of course, matters of artistic taste are subjective in nature. What one person prefers, another may care little for. Hence there is not a thing about the content of a work that is objectively right or wrong, however in its form, one does find features that can be judged objectively. Therefore never worry about whether people will enjoy your work for its content, yet make sure that the form in which your work is presented is technically sound. The structure or form of a work, should never be hastily assembled and sloppy.