My Writing Ambitions
I like to take up the pen when I am bored (like right now, as I sit through another few hours in San Diego airport), it makes me fill productive, well, at least my random thoughts are not wasted, haha...motivation to write indeed)
For any writer, the ultimate goal is always the same: to publish your works and allow others to know you by the views you express in your words...yet, it seems like the number of aspiring writers is just so great in number, that published newspapers/magazines that accept open submissions seems infinitesimal in comparison.
Sure, most of these writers are jokes: their images of their own writings are so great that they generally refuse to even proofread their own works after the initial rush to get the words down on paper. For anyone else who read their works, their often expressed self-confidence is the hallmark of their ludicrousness in proclaiming themselves to be "writers."
I am a typical example of this bunch. My writing, especially when expressed in random thoughts (like here on this blog) is just a written analogy of guerrilla warfare. Once the topic is decided, such perspectives and ideas emerge immediately and they do all make their ways into the writing...yet, there seems to be absolutely no logical sequence in the ordering of the often ephemeral ideas.
Like the guerrilla gunman, the idea "hits" the topic once or twice in a highly superficial fashion, then immediately "runs" out of my mind and writing. The "hits" are numerous, but the deepening of the ideas through the "hits"? Practically nonexistent.
And lack in confidence when writing was not I. Even back in high school, I used to submit papers to highly reputed and academic magazines like Foreign Affairs and actually hoped my pieces would be published (yeah, wishful thinking). When I received replies saying my pieces weren't good enough, I totally believed the kind words coded into the emails...it seems, I believed, I was "not that far away" from the real academics who publish in there.
As I grow up, I know better. Looking back at the writings of those days, they really were truly horrible (about 5 years later, I guess?) and the so-called "academic articles" probably sounded more like rants than this blog does...
Now, I tend to focus on the smaller, more compact issues, forcing myself to focus on one or a few certain perspective when writing. Also, I have been sending pieces to less renowned pieces, notably, English editions of Chinese/Japanese/Korean papers where I can discuss Asian regional issues that common Americans likely do not care about.
But, maybe, my reason for writing has been changing all along. As I said in the first post, the blog serves as a spot for me to put down ideas I can use for more formal, publishable pieces, but the more I write, the more I feel that simply the joy of typing my mind into words is much more overwhelming than any pieces I have published recently.
(well, lets just say, publishing pieces have not been smooth since leaving Yale...Yale newspaper has certain obligation to publish Yale student pieces, but the real world, with its commercialized media, is not that generous and relenting)
I am still searching for a fixed location where I can perhaps periodically publish my thoughts on various different issues (in nice words, it would be my "column"), and I do see the possibility a lot more in East Asia, where views of a culturally understanding "Westerner" should be valuable to some degree.
But perhaps more interesting to note these days is that, people see writing as the effect, rather than the cause, for fame. Famous people from other fields, some completely unrelated and inexperienced in writing (athletics and acting, for instance) choose to use their own names as free advertisements to sell their “books,” often filled with ideas that are not only shallow and lacking analysis or logic in anyway, but also of such low quality as not deserving of any worthy audience.
So…writing, as an art and a profession, is being used. Used for famous people with no writing backgrounds to spill out their vulgar ideas for the commoners to emulate…while any legitimate writers should not stand for that, they can also not doing anything to absolve the situation.
People judge a book by its cover, that’s the truth. If they know who wrote the book and have a rough idea of the writer’s philosophy, why would he or she bother to analyze ten thousand words of ambiguous ideas by someone with little renown? If the audience like the little-know book, maybe the words of mouth will gain the little-known writer some small town fame, but if even slight dislike was felt, the writer is done for.
The celebrities, with the fame gained from other fields, are immune to such effects. If they write well, it will be top headline news proclaiming discovery of literary talent in an already multi-talented genius. If the book sucks, oh well, the celebrity is no writer. What do you expect?
Yet, even the crappy book by the celebrity can bring more enjoyment to the people. The commoners yearn to feel social intimacy with their idols, to discovery their inner commoner amidst the glory of fame. The books allow for that. Yes, the celebrity, despite his/her busy schedule, can be like any other human: set aside time, sit down, and write…it is just exciting to think about: the celebrity doing what WE do!
3:30am in San Diego airport. I wonder, what are the celebrities doing right now? haha
For any writer, the ultimate goal is always the same: to publish your works and allow others to know you by the views you express in your words...yet, it seems like the number of aspiring writers is just so great in number, that published newspapers/magazines that accept open submissions seems infinitesimal in comparison.
Sure, most of these writers are jokes: their images of their own writings are so great that they generally refuse to even proofread their own works after the initial rush to get the words down on paper. For anyone else who read their works, their often expressed self-confidence is the hallmark of their ludicrousness in proclaiming themselves to be "writers."
I am a typical example of this bunch. My writing, especially when expressed in random thoughts (like here on this blog) is just a written analogy of guerrilla warfare. Once the topic is decided, such perspectives and ideas emerge immediately and they do all make their ways into the writing...yet, there seems to be absolutely no logical sequence in the ordering of the often ephemeral ideas.
Like the guerrilla gunman, the idea "hits" the topic once or twice in a highly superficial fashion, then immediately "runs" out of my mind and writing. The "hits" are numerous, but the deepening of the ideas through the "hits"? Practically nonexistent.
And lack in confidence when writing was not I. Even back in high school, I used to submit papers to highly reputed and academic magazines like Foreign Affairs and actually hoped my pieces would be published (yeah, wishful thinking). When I received replies saying my pieces weren't good enough, I totally believed the kind words coded into the emails...it seems, I believed, I was "not that far away" from the real academics who publish in there.
As I grow up, I know better. Looking back at the writings of those days, they really were truly horrible (about 5 years later, I guess?) and the so-called "academic articles" probably sounded more like rants than this blog does...
Now, I tend to focus on the smaller, more compact issues, forcing myself to focus on one or a few certain perspective when writing. Also, I have been sending pieces to less renowned pieces, notably, English editions of Chinese/Japanese/Korean papers where I can discuss Asian regional issues that common Americans likely do not care about.
But, maybe, my reason for writing has been changing all along. As I said in the first post, the blog serves as a spot for me to put down ideas I can use for more formal, publishable pieces, but the more I write, the more I feel that simply the joy of typing my mind into words is much more overwhelming than any pieces I have published recently.
(well, lets just say, publishing pieces have not been smooth since leaving Yale...Yale newspaper has certain obligation to publish Yale student pieces, but the real world, with its commercialized media, is not that generous and relenting)
I am still searching for a fixed location where I can perhaps periodically publish my thoughts on various different issues (in nice words, it would be my "column"), and I do see the possibility a lot more in East Asia, where views of a culturally understanding "Westerner" should be valuable to some degree.
But perhaps more interesting to note these days is that, people see writing as the effect, rather than the cause, for fame. Famous people from other fields, some completely unrelated and inexperienced in writing (athletics and acting, for instance) choose to use their own names as free advertisements to sell their “books,” often filled with ideas that are not only shallow and lacking analysis or logic in anyway, but also of such low quality as not deserving of any worthy audience.
So…writing, as an art and a profession, is being used. Used for famous people with no writing backgrounds to spill out their vulgar ideas for the commoners to emulate…while any legitimate writers should not stand for that, they can also not doing anything to absolve the situation.
People judge a book by its cover, that’s the truth. If they know who wrote the book and have a rough idea of the writer’s philosophy, why would he or she bother to analyze ten thousand words of ambiguous ideas by someone with little renown? If the audience like the little-know book, maybe the words of mouth will gain the little-known writer some small town fame, but if even slight dislike was felt, the writer is done for.
The celebrities, with the fame gained from other fields, are immune to such effects. If they write well, it will be top headline news proclaiming discovery of literary talent in an already multi-talented genius. If the book sucks, oh well, the celebrity is no writer. What do you expect?
Yet, even the crappy book by the celebrity can bring more enjoyment to the people. The commoners yearn to feel social intimacy with their idols, to discovery their inner commoner amidst the glory of fame. The books allow for that. Yes, the celebrity, despite his/her busy schedule, can be like any other human: set aside time, sit down, and write…it is just exciting to think about: the celebrity doing what WE do!
3:30am in San Diego airport. I wonder, what are the celebrities doing right now? haha
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