It is the brutal egoists that survive

But this is one of the results: that all people who try to write become anxious, timid, contracted, become perfectionists, so terribly afraid that they may put something down that is not as good as Shakespeare.

And so no wonder you don't write and put it off month after month, decade after decade. For when you write, if it is to be any good at all, you must feel free, - free and not anxious.

Yes, I hate orthodox criticism. The usual small niggling, fussy-mussy criticism, which thinks it can improve people by telling them where they are wrong, and results only in putting them in straightjackets of hesitancy and self-consciousness, and weazening all vision and bravery.

- Brenda Ueland
at whiskey river
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It seems fortuitous that this came up 1-2-3 today with this magazine:

Narrative
—

followed by these words from The Happy Tutor:

...we are already there. The net is made up mostly, the blog world is, of symbolic analysts. We are in the control room, writing the speeches, doing the technology, doing the customer research, doing the opinion polls, coming up with the ads, jingles and jingoistic slogans. We are working in philanthropy, or churches, or journalism. We are there. We are serving the drinks in our red monkey jackets, moving around the room at Davos serving the canapes. What the f? We do know the story, because we write the story or overhear it being spun.

What we need to do is pool our inside personal knowledge. Piece it together, and create a more accurate "mind map" than those being proffered by the Master and Mistress who remind us constantly that we are Free, and should just go shopping since they have it all under control.

You will notice when you do this, that silence is your constant companion. We are speaking the unspeakkable. Saying what cannot be said. Shunned. Ostracised. Because the truth cannot be engaged publicy, not when it lives and walks like a live thing. You can a write dull book, but to make the drama come alive is to put yourself beyond the pale...

Wealth Bondage 01.Sep.04