Richard Rodriguez scares me just a little
By: Scott
I must be honest. I have been a little intimidated to write about Richard Rodriguez. As my roommate and fellow comic-book nerd so eloquently put it: "Doesn't Richard Rodriguez just make you want to write for forever and ever?" My answer to that was, "yes... yes he most certainly does." My ability to respectfully do his lecture justice in an attempt to write about it will be thin. My "penstrokes" will become childish. My vocabulary will become small. My intellect will diminish. Knowing this, please forgive the lack of clarity I impart as it pertains to what I have to say about Mr. Rodriguez. He spoke on the loss of intimacy in the digital age. Very meaningful, to say the least. Why should we write if we write to everyone we know every single day of our lives? People are getting tired of hearing from you over your Twitter account. If you keep updating your facebook profile every hour, there will never be a time in your life where you have anything more important to say to anybody other than "bout to head over to Taco Bell." How utterly insipid. Rodriguez spoke on one universally unavoidable truth for me as a struggling writer. A writer is not a writer until there is an audience. With no reader, a writer has achieved nothing. "To be a good writer you must be a good reader." I'm failing you Richard Rodriguez. The words aren't coming quite as easily as they have for me in my past, but hopefully someone is going to read this and be the fulfillment of your words for myself as a writer. If I can't write, or more accurately, I choose not to write, then I have failed myself as well, so I will keep on typing. There is far too much going on in my complex world to not write something. As Rodriguez himself stated quite clearly: "Writers block is to be blind to the intensity of our lives." For you, Richard Rodriguez, I will try to open my eyes.
2 comments:
I hear you, Scott. I am reading this. I, too, do not believe in writer's block -- just writing fear, or writing laziness. I have also "unsubscribed" to most of my Friends on Facebook who post more than once or twice a day --- they take up too much of the "news" feed, and subsequently, I generally miss it when they have something actually important to impart.
After reading just two of your posts, I have realized that you are a beautiful writer. You have humbled me. I think your way with words is poetic and lyrical. You most definitely have an audience and I look forward to your autographed copy of your first book in the future :)
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