I somehow missed that first post "If you want to make it as a writer" the first time around... anyone on the fence about reading it, here's a sample paragraph:
"They say that as you age you lose your sense of moral clarity. I think instead we gain a greater sense of moral clarity that grows at the same rate as our understanding that the world is impossibly complicated, including morally. You don’t lose passionate moral judgment. You find instead that all of that passion is inevitably refracted into many conflicting directions by the irreducible complexity of ethical life. You accept in exhaustion that your sense of right and wrong is no match for the fractally multiplying array of judgments that life will put in front of you day by day."
Very well put!
And if the piece starts with this clear-eyed piece of truth, it becomes a mordant and sadly bullseye-precise description of the writing landscape. I'm married to a writer, and I'd never for a second regret it, but I nodded my head so much reading along that I think I need a neck brace.
If you're trying to find the Fucking Cancelled podcast via search rather than the link, note the two 'l's in "Cancelled"; Overcast's search (driven by Apple's index) requires that spelling to find it.
I appreciate this video you did here, Freddie. When I taught a bit, I always told my smarter students who wanted to write but who had maybe started on a path toward medicine or law first to continue what they were doing, skip an MFA, and write in their spare time. Kafka was in law, William Carlos Williams was a doctor, Wallace Stevens was in insurance, even Roth was one step away from entering law too before he got in the New Yorker. Still the fantasy about being the next Cheever, who got in the New Republic at 17 and never had to take any other work, persists. It's not rational to pursue writing on those terms, it has to be something that you will do whether the money for it is there or not. Your only goal has to be to publish the best work you can in precisely the way you want, because the publishing world will not bend to meet your fantasies of literary cocktail parties in the Upper West Side. Maybe times were better in the past, but the writing life has never been a luxurious one. Another thing I told students: no one owes you their attention. Write the best you can, but don't expect plaudits for it. Our national readership is fickle, and that's just the nature of this particular life choice.
Hey Freddie it’s always so nice to *see* you. Not sure how others feel about it or how you do for that matter, but I’d love it if you were to continue sharing some thoughts via video from time to time.
That Fucking Cancelled podcast was phenomenal. Everyone who leans even vaguely left should listen to it. It energized me like nothing has in months.
Most people think that when you criticize Wokeism and Cancel Culture, you're automatically a right winger. But that podcast as well as your writing in general underscores just how badly we need a left-wing critique of this stuff.
I somehow missed that first post "If you want to make it as a writer" the first time around... anyone on the fence about reading it, here's a sample paragraph:
"They say that as you age you lose your sense of moral clarity. I think instead we gain a greater sense of moral clarity that grows at the same rate as our understanding that the world is impossibly complicated, including morally. You don’t lose passionate moral judgment. You find instead that all of that passion is inevitably refracted into many conflicting directions by the irreducible complexity of ethical life. You accept in exhaustion that your sense of right and wrong is no match for the fractally multiplying array of judgments that life will put in front of you day by day."
Very well put!
And if the piece starts with this clear-eyed piece of truth, it becomes a mordant and sadly bullseye-precise description of the writing landscape. I'm married to a writer, and I'd never for a second regret it, but I nodded my head so much reading along that I think I need a neck brace.
If you're trying to find the Fucking Cancelled podcast via search rather than the link, note the two 'l's in "Cancelled"; Overcast's search (driven by Apple's index) requires that spelling to find it.
I appreciate this video you did here, Freddie. When I taught a bit, I always told my smarter students who wanted to write but who had maybe started on a path toward medicine or law first to continue what they were doing, skip an MFA, and write in their spare time. Kafka was in law, William Carlos Williams was a doctor, Wallace Stevens was in insurance, even Roth was one step away from entering law too before he got in the New Yorker. Still the fantasy about being the next Cheever, who got in the New Republic at 17 and never had to take any other work, persists. It's not rational to pursue writing on those terms, it has to be something that you will do whether the money for it is there or not. Your only goal has to be to publish the best work you can in precisely the way you want, because the publishing world will not bend to meet your fantasies of literary cocktail parties in the Upper West Side. Maybe times were better in the past, but the writing life has never been a luxurious one. Another thing I told students: no one owes you their attention. Write the best you can, but don't expect plaudits for it. Our national readership is fickle, and that's just the nature of this particular life choice.
omg freddie do you have a spot of grey on the right side of your beard? Don't read the comments ever!
Hey Freddie it’s always so nice to *see* you. Not sure how others feel about it or how you do for that matter, but I’d love it if you were to continue sharing some thoughts via video from time to time.
That Fucking Cancelled podcast was phenomenal. Everyone who leans even vaguely left should listen to it. It energized me like nothing has in months.
Most people think that when you criticize Wokeism and Cancel Culture, you're automatically a right winger. But that podcast as well as your writing in general underscores just how badly we need a left-wing critique of this stuff.