I recently offered a friend some advice on how to go about writing. I hadn’t actually been asked for this advice, but when they mentioned wanting to write I found myself slipping into advisor/mentor mode and sent them a lengthy email with my guidance. However, within moments of sending the message, I felt a certain regret panging its way through my innards.
Had my gesture been in some way arrogant? Was I trying to frame myself as an expert or an altruistic donor to look cool or was I trying to rebuild my ego to counterbalance the fact that what I have had published hasn’t sold particularly well?
I often find myself receiving advice and by and large – I DON’T WANT IT. It happens to us all and a good illustration of this is the life of a new parent. The arrival of a newborn is invariably accompanied by uninvited snippets of wisdom about which direction the child should be facing in the buggy or that the doting parent should keep talking to the baby while changing its’ nappy just to show approval of them having filled it (yes, this crap is true, I remember receiving it). I won’t dare to go into the Kingdom of breastfeeding because I know it’s a Pandora’s can of worms where I would not be too welcome, but any mother will know what I’m talking about. Please don’t listen to me…go here;
After coaching people for a number of years, I realised that I was doing much of this ‘giving’ to actually help myself. Like the proverbial snide jokes about psychotherapists being ‘crazy’ and in need of fixing themselves or entertainers putting themselves ‘out there’ craving applause and validation to feel they exist.
In the wake of the George Floyd killing in Minneapolis, another friend posted their thoughts. As this person has many Facebook groupies I usually desist from commenting because, probably out of jealousy of their popularity, I prefer being on the fringe rather than among their gaggle of toadies. On this occasion however, I did add a comment because I was getting sick of seeing ‘solutions’ proposed by people channelling Captain Kirk’s universal sensibility but without his ability to implement it (his ability to bring peace to the galaxies is remember, pure fiction. It never actually happened, nor will it, sorry ‘bout that).
My comment, which was designed to be uncontentious, was in turn commented upon. It took a few days, but as sure as the sniper keeps on sniping and the swearer keeps on cursing; it happened. Although this person corrected me on a fact that had changed, their comment was right but irrelevant. I had included two examples and one was wrong, so what? My point was still valid.
The internet culture whereby people provide feedback and counter comment deeply irritates me. It is too easy to ‘call somebody out’ on a small error and effectively make them look foolish and by inference, discount their views. Troll Off and leave me alone.
On the other hand, much of the fault of ‘banter/trolling’ lies with the people that begin the pontification first. Particularly in troubled times they tend to write phrases that include the words MUST or SHOULD. These words look powerful; ‘We should all do this, you must do that …’ yet they are delivered in the hope that somebody else will pick up the baton, physically make it happen and then credit the inspiration back to the originator.
Yet, if anything proves that implementation is more vital than ideas, it is this fraction from the beginning of Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
“And then, one Thursday, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, a girl sitting on her own in a small café in Rickmansworth suddenly realized what it was that had been going wrong all this time, and she finally knew how the world could be made a good and happy place. This time it was right, it would work, and no one would have to get nailed to anything.”
So, where are we now? If we are writing on a public forum, we’ve arrived at the point where it is necessary to cancel out ambiguities. You can only make one point and that has to be expressed in very simple Trump/Tweet terms. Aim for the lowest linguistic and intellectual denominator. This is neither the forum for creativity nor being clever.
The acronym KISS has never been more appropriate. If you break this convention somebody will slay you. For safety, add a third S for a second STUPID. Belt & Braces etc.…
If you are writing something personal, experimental or embryonic, keep it very private. I suggest (as I did with my friend in Para 1) to start a blog but ensure it cannot be shared or seen. Use it as your own heavily passworded journal. Keep it under your metaphoric mattress and tell nobody it even exists. That way, even if you die in the meantime, nobody will ever find out.
The best form of factual writing nowadays is academic. I have blogged before how challenging I found the rigours of this approach, but I am convinced that in this age of false news and peacock posturing opinion that academic research is the only way of finding the (near) truth. It’s not perfect as so many contradictory scientists have demonstrated during Pandemic 2020, but is preferable to the miasma of guesswork and leming / bandwaggon thinking that is choking our minds.
Thanks for reading. Absolutely no comment required.
Ends
Douglas Adams quote; https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/79195-and-then-one-thursday-nearly-two-thousand-years-after-one