Garrison Keillor to me: Get over it, already

[pegkerr]

I have sort of a hard time not taking this personally. Garrison Keillor says that writers who gripe that Writing is Hard (and you all know that I've bitched plenty about being blocked in this journal before) should just get a grip and knock it off. Writing is hard. Get over it.

Writers, Quit Whining. Spare us the self-involved moaning over the agonies of your art. Writing is no harder than anything else, and the complainers should can it.

Ouch.

Thoughts?

Comments

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I don't think writing is harder than other creative pursuits, but I also don't think it's easier.

I also think there's a difference between whining and expressing difficulties.

This may be an attempt to justify my own whining. Hard to say.

[snippy]

I think it's horse hockey. I have no (fiction) writing ambition, and I find writing to be very difficult--even the essays I did last year for my logic and argument class were as hard as going to the dentist. Maybe he's only talking to himself--and people like him. But that doesn't mean *every* writer is like him. What, no other great writers were ever blocked?

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

I don't really see the connection between "no harder" and "stop complaining". I do think writers are lucky in being able to create art by doing something they love; I fail to see why this means either that writing isn't difficult (maybe not more difficult than some other jobs but so what? you do what you do) or why you shouldn't complain when it is difficult. I certainly am not planning to give up the right to complain about my job, even if I acknowledge that it's easier for me than digging ditches would be (most days).

Further, you *do* have another job - several, really, one paying one and the ones you do at home. That means both that you have a double or quintuple load on you (certainly fair reason to gripe) and that you are perfectly capable of deciding for yourself which is harder than what, and what merits complaint.

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

I don't have time just now to watch the ad and therefore read the whole thing, but--

Yeah, can't imagine why you'd be insulted by THAT one.

I would point out that you HAVE a full time job. (And the kids.) So thpt to him.

Personally, I think that writers vary a lot in how they deal with writing. I'm glad he can deal with it in his own way; that does not mean that the way you deal with writing is inappropriate or worthy of criticism.

[ali-wildgoose.livejournal.com]

I think that Mr. Keillor is full of it, to a point, largely because he's playing fast and loose with the meaning of the word "hard."

The problem is that the things he's comparing writing to -- building a house, having a disease, teaching schoolkids -- are trying in largely different ways. I'm not saying writing is any harder, certainly -- I just think that it can be AS hard, if by "hard" you mean "frustrating, painstaking, headache-inducing, gut-wrenching, etc." Writing a book doesn't physically wear you out like nailing together a wall, but it certainly takes its toll.

Actually, I think the big shock for most new writers (and probably a good number of established writers as well) is that writing is difficult at all. I think there's this idea that because you're not physically chasing around third graders or handling power tools, the craft of writing is much easier and takes less practice and prepration than those things might. Anyone can put pen to paper, right?

But of course that's not true, and so we whine and moan and take pity on ourselves just like everyone else does.

The secret, in all likelihood, is knowing when to stop bellyaching and start getting something done. ;}

(Not that I'm one to talk)

[gamps-garret.livejournal.com]

I agree with Keillor, but I also think that he's talking about "Writers" and not writers. Writers who complain that writing is hard, that being blocked is hard, and who don't actually sit down and write through the difficulty, who instead close themselves off from writing while they complain about it being a difficult art. There's nothing saying a person can't complain about the terrible parts of one's job (hell, I feel like I've done nothing BUT complain about my job [and most everything else] for the past two months) - but there's a difference between griping to one's friends about a lousy day-week-month-year at work and bitching publicly about how hard it is to do one's job. And there's a difference between complaining that something is hard and doing it anyway, and in avoiding the difficulty because it's not worth it.

A writer is someone who continues to write despite the difficulty, despite the blocking, despite turning out nothing but crap week after week. In the same way that I'm an event planner only while I continue to plan events (even if they suck, even if my creativity and innovation and ingenuity wash away like nothing), a writer is a writer only while s/he continues to put words down on a page. Sabbaticals and vacations are one thing. Giving up the action in favor of talking about the action is another.

[rutemple.livejournal.com]

I just figure the shy awkward boy with the funny socks is talking to himself, hard, again.

You're good. Don't take it personally.
The writing will be there when you are ready and not a minute before.
We believe in you, always.

[ladyjaida.livejournal.com]

Hah, horse hockey! That's great.

But I completely agree -- I really detest it when one writer will make a sweeping, generalizing statement about what writing is or isn't or what people should or shouldn't do, since it's damn well different for everyone!

[callunav.livejournal.com]

I pretty much object to anyone telling a group of people to stop whining.

It's rude.

If he's not interested in hearing what writers who are working through their difficulties and articulating them have to say about the process, he has the excellent option of not reading it. He's got no business dismissing the complex thinking of a whole class of people, few of whom he can possibly know personally, especially not in public, anyhow. If he wants to say something disparaging about writers who are able to put words to (writers...putting words to things...wacky) the various challenges and resistances they encounter in the writing process at his dinner table, that's skin off nobody's nose. But to publicize a statement of contempt and disinterest? That belies the kind of quinessentially midwestern understated courtesy he's usually a poster child for.

In other words, I think he should stop whining about it.

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

Thoughts?

"Oh, for ghodssake, Garrison -- everybody complains about their job. Lighten up."

[d-aulnoy.livejournal.com]

Well, for one thing - if writing in general isn't that "hard" for Mr. Keillor, perhaps he ought to consider that his results aren't very "good".

This is one of the most pointless, blathering pieces of drek that I've ever come across. keillor begins with a fundamental untruth; the assumption that most writers are members of the idle rich, who do not, in fact, teach school, build houses, bus tables ... and then and only then, come home to try to write.

Writing is unlike most other professions in a number of ways. For one thing, everybody writes (I'm not addressing the problem of illiteracy in a comment with a maximum length, but I hope you'll allow me the generalization). People who teach, engage in construction, etc.? Still have occasion to write letters, editorials, reports for their jobs. Writing is one of the key skills which everyone needs, and I'm not just saying that because I teach English. :)

Second, writing is one of the few professions that is very rarely an area of specialization from the get-go. Except for the rare wunderkind who starts early, most people *do* have to deal with other concerns simultaneously with pursuing their creative dreams - a fact which complicates matters considerably, and a fact which he ignores. Writing is not only hard, it's an additional hardship that most people choose out of ... what? Love.

Can people be boring when they speak about their private passions, their hobby-horses? Certainly, to people who don't share those passions, or who are very insensitive in general. But writers are no more guilty of this sin than any other group ....

What I detect most in Keillor's little diatribe is the same kind of entitlement that you can, in fact, see in many other areas: writing isn't hard *for him*. Great! Lots of people think it's not that hard to find a job, either. Or to raise kids. We can generally acknowledge that those people are full of it, especially when we see examples from their own lives, either of their entitlement, or of their own issues when faced with a moment of difficulty.

And this brings me back to the issue of difficulty vs. the issue of quality ... I'd say that, generally, anything that's worth doing is worth doing well, and "doing well" generally involves making an effort. Somteimes it flows; sometimes it's hard. At the end of the day, I'd rather read a well-written piece that resulted from a great deal of work than a piece of tripe that flowed trippingly of someone's tongue. I can *also* say, subjective as my opinion might be, that your writing is very, very good.

Just my two cents ....

Writing (just like any kind of work) IS hard.

[huladavid.livejournal.com]

I'm reminded of a line (I think it's from Dorothy Parker) in reaction to something someone said about their prose just flowing easily out, like a player piano scroll. The response was something along the lines of, "Yes, and just as original..."

Painting is hard, writing is hard, raising children is hard, sculpting is hard, LIFE is hard.

Also, I think the Garrison is reacting to the "oh woe, is me. I have such a sensitive, artistic nature" school of "writing".

Oh hell, I gotta break out my copy of Art And Fear.

And if you need to bitch about writing, please do.

[naomikritzer]

Well, if he's talking about people who buttonhole strangers at bus stops to bemoan the dark, dark angst of their brilliant artistic life, I guess I'd be on his side. If those people exist. I've heard stories, but never actually spotted one in the wild.

If he's talking about people who complain on their own blogs, well, er, that's what blogs are for, right? It's a pull-technology rather than a push-technology, so I figure that people who don't want to listen to me whine about whatever I'm feeling whiny about on that particular day can take me out of their bookmarks or off their friends list. I certainly don't expect that Garrison is stopping by to check up on me and my stories about my kids.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Nice essay, although a little heavy handed.

I agree with his main point, that lots of things in life are hard and that whining about it is not very pretty. Of course, some things are harder for some than others, and other things are harder for others than some. That's what makes the world fun.

But everyone complains about their job, and so what?

B

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

"...well, er, that's what blogs are for, right?"

More to the point, that's what friends are for. Whether blogs are for that or not depends on whose reading them.

B

[ashfae.livejournal.com]

I'll accept that criticism as soon as everyone else stops complaining about their work, too.

As Mike Ford once said . . .

[joelrosenberg.livejournal.com]

(paraphrasing) writing is at the same time a very soft touch and a very hard dollar. I can't think of anything else I've done that's both as easy and as hard.

As for me, my feeling is that if complaining about it makes life better for you/me/them, you/I/they should go ahead and do it. My own objection is to people -- sometimes including me -- who complain about it when it seems to make life, and writing, more difficult.

By the Brust/Rosenberg Pact of 1998 . . .

[joelrosenberg.livejournal.com]

. . . anything that Steve and I agree on is, by definition, true. We agree that how hard you've worked at a given piece of writing doesn't have anything to do with how good it is.

[cmpriest.livejournal.com]

I take the approach of A League of Their Own: "Of course it's hard. If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it." But that's not to say it's the only hard thing, or that it's any harder than any other intense pursuit.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

I think he's absolutely right that writing is no harder than anything else--it's just hard in different ways. Or to use my favorite quote about writing (from Red Smith): "Writing is easy. You just sit down at a typewriter and open a vein." (I got that one from Denny Lien, as I remember; he agreed with it, and so do I.)

And I think Garrison has a right to be tired of writers whining--if he applies it to every kind of work. That is, if he thinks no one should complain about their work, well, that's his preference and it's his right to say so. I tend to agree with him that some artists--not only writers--do tend to "self-involved moaning over the agonies of" their work in a way that, for example, police officers and emergency room doctors do not.

[joelrosenberg.livejournal.com]

We've clearly known different sorts of cops and ER doctors.

[hillarygayle.livejournal.com]

I agree with several other commenters: I think it's correct that writing is no harder than many other things, but everyone has the right to complain about difficulty. Perhaps not constantly and to everyone within earshot, but if you want to complain about the difficulty of writing on your LJ, and I want to complain about the difficulty of calculus on mine, who is anyone to tell us to stop?

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

He's full of foofoo.

Writers are word people. They use words. Being frustrated about anything requires venting, and some people vent by driving too fast, by drinking, but all kinds of behaviours. Writers who vent with other writers by writing....who is that hurting?

GK, get real. You've been paid too well to long, and you've lost your grip on reality. So there. Neener-poo.

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

I just commented on the Keillor article over in my journal, FWIW...

[pameladean]

I think he's being a Minnesotan on a bad day. In the kind of, "Hey, look, nobody is supposed to complain like that, and I'd like to but I won't because I Am Not Like That, so why don't you guys cut it out?"

P.