I’ve been reading through some of my old blog posts, and I have to say I am not the biggest fan of my own writing. I can tell that I have a very repetitive pattern of writing, and often use words like “critical” , “underscore”, and “vital” over and over again. Big yikes, as people say.
This is a good thing because the first step to solving a problem is acknowledging there is one, but at the same time it’s a bit of a blow to realize my writing vocabulary is so limited. Frankly, I should be reading more just to keep up to date on a variety of writing styles and vocabulary, but at the same time there is value in writing not just concisely but simply. There is beauty in choice, complicated word choice, but especially for blog writing it’s important not to get too wrapped up in yourself and allow your writing to be legible.
This being said, one of the things that always struck me about Nabokov is that early English professors would criticize him for always throwing bits of French into his writing, claiming that it came off as overly pretentious. Certainly this would have been the case, but in the end this habit of his contributed to his fantastic writing later in life.
One of the nice things about poetry, of which I know nothing about, for the record, is at least that it’s a quick way of engaging in thought about word choice and phrasing. For other types of writing there’s a bit of getting around to it, and frankly it is often easier to identify poor word choice than to celebrate good.
Anyways, for now, I will try to make an effort to avoid these habitual patterns of writing. This might be a tad overkill, as I’m especially sensitive to these things, having gone through lots of my own writing, but at the same time I want to write for myself as well. It means a great deal to me to produce work that I am happy with, and one the other side great shame to read work of mine that I sincerely dislike.
The Scenic Climax 