1/31/2013

After seeing a Charlie Rose Show

Ellouise Schoettler
I would like to write fast and funny essays for the blog  - but you know something, I don't think I know how anymore.

It's not writer's block exactly - its lack of a world view.

What does that mean?

It means that I have been so totally focused on the everyday of my own life for the past three years that it has narrowed my vision for what is going on in the big world. I imagine others who live with serious illness, theirs or that of a loved one, may feel the same.

So, if you read this blog - please be patient with me as I try to creak myself around to change my focus and take a look at the world around me.

I am working on it.

Last night I watched a recent Charlie Rose Show where he was interviewing writer George Saunders.
I love to watch fellow North Carolinian Charlie Rose even though I do have to over look that he went to Duke not Carolina (UNC). 

George Saunders
Although I don't remember all they said to each other I was taken with Saunders' openness about the difficulties of writing. He talked about the need to let the work take its own direction - not to pre-plan so that you squeeze the life out of it.

That's a bit like the way I work - whether working out a new oral story or typing freely to see if something comes together - as I am doing now.

Saunders defended himself because he has never written a novel even though his new book of short stories, Tenth of December is high on the New York Times Best Seller list. Would you believe that there are some in the literary world who are punching him about that?  Read about it   HERE.

Listening to him I liked him and all the more when he added that once his wife gives a first draft the thumbs up - he works and re-works the piece to give the prose an electric spark. I loved that!! His wife is his muse and he admits it. How great is that? Read more about him in this in-depth interview.

Now I have to read his new book - Tenth of December.

3 comments:

Storyteller Mary said...

My little 2 cents worth -- write what inspires you at any given time. It's the only way to write and tell your honest best.
Those who need that message will be helped by it. Those who don't need it now, may carry away something that will help them later.
Hugs to you, my friend, and admiration and respect for your work on this journey . . .

Anonymous said...

My little 2 cents worth -- write what inspires you at any given time. It's the only way to write and tell your honest best.
Those who need that message will be helped by it. Those who don't need it now, may carry away something that will help them later.
Hugs to you, my friend, and admiration and respect for your work on this journey . . .

Granny Sue said...

I am not sure that a world view is necessary. Only that we see the view of our world, what is important and why--that is a world view all its own and as important as whatever happens in any other corner of this small sphere.