{tiny}

A Thing About Writers…

passivevoice:

This is me, about to get “real.”

Okay.

As a writer you’re allowed many passes. Most people that read your work will in fact enjoy it, because most people are not writers, and have no idea what makes a poem “good.”

We, as writers, have an obligation to spare no one in our opinion. We are responsible for the thick-skinned, hard and critical thinking writers of tomorrow, and if we do not exercise our right to be cuttingly honest, no one will.

There are many writers currently that are soft, easy to offend and personally righteous when it comes to their “work” because they have been taught that art is whatever they want it to be, and that art is subjective and no one can tell them what is good or bad, they have no obligation to get “better” because there is no such thing.

This is the kind of thinking that is poisonous for those that spend hundreds of thousands of dollars attending school, that drop thousands of dollars on workshops to hone their craft.

These writers, these soft under bellied writers with a stronger spine in defending their work than actually learning how to make their work better dilute the pool, to an average reader our work and their work is not different, in fact, their work is often preferred for its easy to understand nature. I’ve encountered many instances where a stronger, better trained, and honed writer is undercut by writers appealing to the “the mass ignorant audience,” either through lack of technical skills or unintentional amateur mistakes.

We should never feel bad for another writer getting the shit stick, we should be proud that they are getting the truth, no matter how cruel or mean. Any criticism often comes from a place of honesty or truth, and in both instances they are immeasurably important to the growth of a writer.

-Matthew Erman