Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Another Bites the Dust

Now it's Charlie Brooker's turn to decide that the internet has been destroying both his writing time and his attention span, and that he must retrain himself and cut down his time online.

(If anyone here is interested, on my other blog I'm charting my progress at trying to do the same while very much needing to use the internet for publicity for a new publication.)

Gotta love Charlie Brooker: recently he dared to say what very few writers would, but what I suspect most writers secretly think: that he doesn't want to advise anyone else about their writing beause a) he doesn't really know how he does it, it's like riding a bike, really and b) why would any writer trying to make it in a literary world where there's only room for the few go and help others to turn out potentially better than himself?

4 comments:

Vanessa Gebbie said...

Well, hand waving here... I DO NOT think like that. I think the opposite.

Why on earth should we, who have got to where we are on the backs of those who taught us, mentored us, put up with our learning tantrums, shut oursleves up without passing something on to the next generation of writers??

Its not just wrong, though, it is SO short-sighted. Teaching is mavellous. opens you to new ideas, arguments, directions... its one of the best ways to learn, isnt it?

So please, count me well out of the 'most' writers who 'think like that'!!

Elizabeth Baines said...

I do count you out, V! I know you love teaching.

Maybe I shouldn't have said 'most'...

Alice Turing said...

I do try and help others, but his article did make me laugh. And I particularly liked the bit about the tennis balls. That was hilarious. Gotta love him.

kaye said...

I agree. definitely