I’ve written two posts thus far. And truth be told, I hate them. The reason is they’re over written. I feel like I’m trying to hard to write.
I remember I read this book once, If You Can Talk You Can Write by Joel Saltzman. I really like that book, sold it to Half Price Books during one of my many purges. The title covers pretty much the gist of the book. But I remember reading it and feeling like it gave me permission to just write like it sounded in my head.
Then: I read William Goldman’s stuff. May he Rest In Peace. And part of why I liked him is how he wrote his non-fiction books. His non-fiction and his screenplays is that they sound like Bill is sitting across from me, telling me how it is/was.
In fact, my desert island book would be Which Lie Did I Tell. Other than the Bible, of course. And saddest thing I think I’ll ever write: my copy of Which Lie Did I Tell is more wore than any of my Bibles. It’s true.
In fact, my copy of Which Lie is coming undone. It’s missing pages. I’ve got a few pages that sticking out, having come unglued from the binding. I think I’m due for a new copy.
And this is my second copy. Can’t remember what I did with the first one. Maybe it got sold in another purge. Seems likely.
I like it, because Bill was always trying to tell a story. And he was telling a story in the only way he knew how. Now, I’m no Bill Goldman. Never will be.
Recently, I had picked up this other book, Thrill Me by Benjamin Percy. It’s a helluva read on the craft of writing. Percy has a command of the language. I’ve never seen anyone write sentences packed with so much in so few words.
“I had a leather-bound journal that I filled with my barbed-wire handwriting.” Did you see want he did there? Percy has a knack of putting the picture in your head.
In his short story, Caves Of Oregon, he begins with “This afternoon, a hot August afternoon, the refrigerator bleeds.” The guy can write. And the story isn’t too bad either.
When I was writing the last two posts, that is what I was trying to immolate. That kind of writing.
I once read this essay by Stephan King, in a Harlan Ellison collection, and in this essay (I forget the name), King talks about this. He talks about how when your writing you imitate what your reading. He likens it to how milk starts to take on the flavors of what closest to it in the frig.
So when King is reading Harlan, his writing takes on that cantankerous old soul. This isn’t all together a bad thing, King goes on to say, it’s a way of finding your own voice.
And this is what this blog is primally about: finding my own voice. Not Ben’s and not Bill’s. Mine.
Still, if I have to sit in the frig next to someone, I pick Bill. It may not sound as good as Percy’s voice, but it’s closer to my own.