Before Midsummer
Last month as BookExpo America and its Author Hub were about to convene in New York, I had the good fortune to be in Stockholm to speak at a conference called The Next Chapter.
It’s produced by the very able Jonas Lennermo and his team at Publit, a publishing firm at the heart of Sweden’s highly literate, gracious culture.
I say “good fortune” for two reasons.
First, while making the run to Stockholm and back looked pretty meshugga on paper — I’d be getting back to the States with about a 36-hour turnaround to BEA in New York — the dash actually proved to be an amazing breather in a laughably busy spring season. There was a speakers’ dinner in a jewel-box castle built by the crown as a viewing stand for ice skating. There was a design-hotel room in a former barracks, centuries old. There were engaged, focused co-speakers and conferees ready with lively exchanges of views. And there was a long, long supper outdoors in the all-but-endless evening light, the kind of moment when colleagues become friends. I left richer than when I went in.
Second, the trip had a sort of parallel journey running alongside it, something peculiar on the wing of each 767 I jumped onto: it was as if I’d flown briefly away from the turmoil of the industry! the industry! and into what I seriously can only truthfully describe as the “talent” of what we’re on about here in writing and publishing.
In a curious coincidence, Suzannah Windsor Freeman’s piece “Do I Have Talent?” You’re Asking the Wrong Question ran here at Writer Unboxed as I flew back. And there it was: The Talent Question. Like The Intelligence Question, it’s one I find fascinating because it scares away so many people so needlessly.
Mind you, Freeman’s evocation of a special difficulty women can have with this point is powerful, I won’t raise a hand against it. Based in a Psychology Today article from Heidi Grant Halvorson, it posits the issue as a gender-based dilemma in which boys are socially indoctrinated to believe they can do more to better themselves than girls are. I don’t doubt for a moment that most of this concept is woefully viable.
I know from reading Louann Brizendine‘s marvelous reductio-ad-duct-tape The Male Brain that the kinetic nature of boys’ development matches the kind of “try harder” instruction given to them — Halvorson refers to this — and I can understand how this may translate for guys into a “you can do it” message.
But we tussle with The Talent Question on a much roomier, broader plain in publishing and writing than gender-based considerations give us.
On that wider field of things that weird us out, a mention of talent gets everybody confused and defensive, just as a mention of intelligence does. So needlessly.
What Are We Talking About?
Intelligence is best understood as a measure of adaptability. How well can you adapt to a situation? How well can you take in a situation and handle it? How well can you solve problems. Not how many capitals of Asia you can name.
How adaptable are you? That’s intelligence. [pullquote]Doing It Yourself gets way beyond an IKEA kit when your idea for a book arrives with no instructions and more than a few screws missing.[/pullquote]
And talent? Aptitude. A proclivity for something. A faculty for something. A natural inclination toward something. Not necessarily a prodigy’s tour jeté across the ballet stage, just a propensity.
My grandmother never measured a single ingredient in her life in the kitchen, never had a moment’s training, and yet she was an astonishingly good cook. Her Deeply Southern recipes died with her because they were recorded nowhere. My mother tried to catch sugar, flour, other ingredients as Zola poured them through her hands into mixing bowls, to see if she could recreate what came out of that kitchen near Charleston. Impossible. She could never replicate Zola’s recipes. They were the results of talent, of a strange, almost scary ability to sense what would work and what wouldn’t on the stove and in the oven.
Why are we so afraid to speak of talent in writing, in literature, in publishing?
You want to tell me my grandmother wasn’t talented?
When Self-Help…Doesn’t
What if it’s because we’re in an era of highly inflated self-help? — and in an industry that, indeed, has always depended on the talents of strangers, Blanche.
Modern traditional publishing, because it uses a creative corps that works outside of those office buildings in Manhattan, has always had to hope that someone, anyone, probably without formal training, would turn up with a manuscript that could be made usable. Like an automaker waiting for the next model design to come from an unknown bright kid in the boondocks, publishing’s whole infrastructure of queries and rejections, agents and acquisitions, has marched forward on the belief that somewhere out there, somebody’s talent was enough to get a respectable start on a book that ingenious editing and production could make salable.
And today, as the digital dynamic puts the tools of publishing into the hands of those bright kids in the boondocks, those bright kids are newly aware that they’re having to hunt down and recognize their own talents. Cultivate them. Refine them.
For most of them, there won’t be any uptake at big buildings in Manhattan and no ingenious editors and designers to make them fly. Doing It Yourself gets way beyond an IKEA kit when your idea for a book arrives with no instructions and more than a few screws missing.
Of all things, this is the worst time to try to deny the importance of talent.
And yet, “guru” after “master” after “expert” comes trundling past us yelling, “Talent is crap! All you need is hard work!” Whole books are out there on this.
I read Geoffrey Colvin’sTalent is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else , and I’m here to tell you that Colvin is overrated. He talks of “deliberate practice” as the key. I’m good with that, no problem — and what else would talented people do but engage in deliberate practice in the area in which they discover their natural capabilities?
How can we be so crazed for political correctness that we’d toss off the importance of the soul-rooted interests and gifts we need and should learn to locate in ourselves? Why not name them, trust them, yes, Colvin, practice them? No, you need not walk up and down the street in your neighborhood listing the talents you’ve discovered in yourself. But you do need to discover them. And then, yes by all means, work hard on them, build up the craft to raise the art of your interests, sure.
[pullquote]Could it be that so many folks trying to succeed in this newly accessible career path believe they don’t have the talent to handle it?[/pullquote]
Here’s my question: Why are we so busy these days denying this? I can’t see why shouting “Talent is crap! All you need is hard work!” is so satisfying.
Could it be that so many folks trying to succeed in this newly accessible career path believe they don’t have the talent to handle it?
Ah. Well, then. Maybe when only three Americans are left not writing books, we should expect a lot of them to be working pretty hard to convince themselves that “All you need is hard work!”
If that’s it — if this time of inflated self-help is the outcome I fear it is of a lot of folks trying to do something for which they may not have identified a real talent in themselves — then you’re going to need to be truer than ever to an understanding of your own potentials and what they are.
Is This About Insecurity?
Believe me, spotting the talent that underlies what you’re working to do is your best course. Work like hell on it, absolutely, but don’t let some quack tell you it doesn’t count.
What I saw in Sweden was a day of conversation about publishing and literature that turned on the talents of various presenters.
The program had a sort of clean elegance to it because each person coming to the stage arrived with his or her ideas and presentation well in hand. Instead of multi-tracked panel discussions with folks trying to address issues in 50 minutes flat, we heard targeted, neatly conceived messages, one at a time, in a sequence with an arc — a beginning, a middle, and an end.
It took talent to program this — and hard work.
And it took talent — and more hard work — for each person to play her and his role in the day.
I like what it showed me about working at one’s desk. Instead of trying to mash oneself into the wrong chair to write the wrong thing for the wrong people, it starts with what one might do best, might like most, might find nearest at hand.
Talent tells us these things about ourselves. I say we deny it at our peril.
How closely to your own perceived talents are you working in your writing life? Do you feel like you’re trying to contort yourself into something you may not really be? Why do you think we’re so hesitant to talk about talent? Is everybody that insecure about what they’re doing? Or is it something else?
About Porter Anderson
@Porter_Anderson is a recipient of London Book Fair's International Excellence Award for Trade Press Journalist of the Year. He is Editor-in-Chief of Publishing Perspectives, the international news medium of Frankfurt Book Fair New York. He co-founded The Hot Sheet, a newsletter for trade and indie authors, which now is owned and operated by Jane Friedman. Priors: The Bookseller's The FutureBook in London, CNN, CNN.com and CNN International–as well as the Village Voice, Dallas Times Herald, and the United Nations' WFP in Rome. PorterAndersonMedia.com
Fascinating thoughts here, Porter. I always associate talent with passion. When you love what you’re doing and are honestly motivated by the joy of doing it, then you likely have a gift for it. After that, I agree with Malcolm Gladwell that it takes 10,000 hours of practice, study, and perseverance to make that talent successful. Of course, “knowing” your passion (writing) is key, as opposed to “wanting” to be something (be a writer).
When I was raising my children the trend in parenting was to tell them they could “be” anything they wanted when they grew up. I thought that was false direction. It seemed more helpful to direct them to discover what they loved to do and follow that passion, explore the joy. But you are right in that our society inflates the ego as a motivator rather than as you so aptly say pursue “soul-rooted interests.”
I agree with Paula. Successful writers, however you define success, love writing. It’s not work. It’s their passion. Refining their craft is something they pursue naturally. That’s why no matter how rich a writer becomes, they invariably die working on yet another manuscript. They do what they love until the end.
Hey, James —
I’m with you. I think the joy in what you’re doing, in fact, is one great way to tell that you’ve successfully detected true talent — that natural inclination and purpose — in yourself and that you’re not shoving yourself in the wrong direction.
Excellent insight, thanks for dropping in!
-p.
Hey, Paula!
Thanks for the great comment — I love your concept of having children “discover what they love to do.” That’s precisely the right process of hunting down one’s “talents,” which as you say do usually equate to passions as well. At least the luckiest of us tend to love and be enthusiastic about whatever gifts and natural inclinations we have.
Great approach, and thanks so much again for reading and weighing in, sounds as if we’re on the same page-
-p.
Steve Jobs wasn’t just anyone – and he didn’t just work harder than other people: his talent had the opportunity to develop, but it was undeniably there.
Not all people with talent for writing are going to have the opportunity to write, to discover their potential, to get encouragement, or an audience. A lot of people who think they might have talent who actually don’t are getting the opportunity to put up or shut up.
Few people attempt a novel; fewer finish one. Most of those finished novels are not very good.
I think the main quality that distinguishes people with talent is the capacity to look at their own work, and see how far it is from good – and keep working until that difference is as small as possible.
It is hard to publicly claim you think you have talent – sending a query to an agent or putting an ebook up on Amazon is an act of huge hubris.
Talent is only part of the equation. Persistence, actually doing the work, developing an educated eye – these are all within your purview. Talent is not. You have to hope you have it – because it isn’t something you can acquire.
That doesn’t mean you can’t produce competent writing, or that you can’t improve your own writing. You’ll find that out by trying.
I have the necessary hubris. But I will never be Steve Jobs.
Hi, Alicia,
Thanks for your thoughtful comment.
I don’t think we disagree anywhere. I do think that a great deal of persistence and concentrated effort is required in most cases, and that can fairly be called “deliberate practice” or those 10,000 hours of work in the Gladwellian lexicon.
You’re right that trying to close the gap between potential and achievement AND the ability to correctly see where that gap lies are incredibly important elements of real success.
Overall, I’d say we’re near the same wavelength on this. Not sure I’d call the offering of your work to the world hubris but I do think it takes enormous sense of self, and that, in my concept, is served by the identification with and understanding of one’s talents.
Again, great to have you, thanks so much.
-p.
Hard to talk about talent, Porter, because ether is at the heart of it. Difficult to talk about talent here, because no one can teach it. Editors & agents (and middle-school teachers) recognize it, want it, ask for it, know it when they see it, but can’t tell you what it is. We’re sticking our hands in the flour of someone else’s talent to see what it is, and it falls through our fingers. What we can see is the arrangement of words left on a page by someone with talent, then analyze and even prescribe the arrangement as paradigm of talent.
It’s like going to where a star has fallen to see what’s there. Nothing. Talent was the fall.
As for our own talent, it is not up to us to proclaim it by saying it. Talent does not tell itself. It shows itself. Others recognize it… it tastes good. And perhaps there is a talent for every palate. Perhaps talent surfaces within a culture and would not be recognized or appreciated (or eaten) outside that culture. In the end, we are writing for people perhaps who grew up the way we did, who think about the things we think about. And for people interesting in other ways of thinking, of seeing (yes, the eyes are part of the brain).
Talent may be limited to time and place. Talent may need be current.
And, yes, recognizing talent is a talent itself. One that is sometimes lacking in the corporate approach to making quarterly profits off what was originally talent and is now rote product. Not much talent in a Twinkie, is there? Although, originally there must have been. Who wrote the first western?
For most of us, the end result of a foodstuff home recipe is that we enjoy eating it. Most cannot and would not attempt to sift out the talent and tell others what it is. We just eat more of the stuff. Gimme.
The cook doesn’t need to say what her/his talent is. They show it and that’s all they need do. Let others tear the recipe apart so still others may reproduce it. They’ll have something that looks like a cake alright, if they follow the directions carefully… yes, it looks like a cake, but it tastes like a mix from a box on the grocery store shelf.
Hey, Randy,
NO worries about the multiple posts — it doubled one of mine and I had to kill it. I’ll see if I can’t dump at least your repeat below from the CMS.
All I’ll say about your comment here is that you seem to be going to a lot of lengths (some in nice phrases, yes) to avoid thinking about talent as an identifiable natural inclination, aptitude, develop-able factor found in a personality. I’d advise you to re-think that. If more folks were to try to look squarely at where their talents seem to point them, I think we’d see not only more success but also a lot more sensible entries in an industry that’s staggered by far, far, far, far too many books.
Too many people today are trying to write.
This is spurred by the digital dynamic’s provision to them of the means to publish.
Just because one CAN publish doesn’t mean one SHOULD publish.
And just because our times are digital doesn’t mean that everyone has any business writing.
Thanks again for jumping in, all the best,
-p.
What we learn, talent or no talent, when we learn commercial story structure is the current culture wherein talent may flourish. Same with subject/verb agreement. Things like semi-colons are a passing culture, looks like. Complete sentences, for that matter. What we study here is an understanding of how to use our talent in a way that our culture recognizes. And, for that matter, likes. Anyway, I think that’s what it is. I could be wrong now. Hey, maybe that’s my talent!
What we learn here when we study commercial story structure is the current culture wherein our talent may flourish. Same with learning subject/verb agreement. Semi-colons are a passing culture, I think. Complete sentences, for that matter. Learning this particular (and varied — lots of sub-cultures) culture allows for a talent to be rewarded. And as fixed as it may seem to those who teach it, this culture is always changing. And someone with talent will show us the way to change it. What a cutting-edge book was ten or fifteen years ago may not be what a cutting-edge book is today. The edges move constantly. The middle of the culture stays the same.
At least, I think that’s what we’re doing. I could be wrong now. Hey, maybe that’s my talent!
Fck! Double-posted. I apologize to everybody!! Sincerely sorry. [ Although I must admit I remembered rather well what I’d written when I thought the machine had eaten it — but, expanded it and that’s never good. ]
It’s not that talent is underrated or overrated–it’s that there’s nothing you can do about it. You get your cards. You can’t complain, you cannot change them. You can only play them.
And playing takes skill.
That’s where the hard work and the craft pay off.
If you want to write, you work at it. I’ve known talented people who can’t tell a good story because they don’t care about figuring out how to best communicate it… they have TALENT, you see, and they don’t need to do the work mere mortals do.
I also know folks without the native genius of our best literati who nevertheless persevere and manage to get better at what they do.
So I don’t think it’s an insecurity issue, Porter. I think sometimes the talent thing is used to defeat and deflate potential competition. “You don’t really have the talent, friend. Why don’t you try plumbing?”
Talent helps, but it’s a sliding scale. People with moderate aptitude but robust attitude can get to be pretty good at this game. On the other hand, as our old friend Cal Coolidge said, unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
Hey, Jim!
Super of you to drop by –
And I think you’ve got a beautiful statement here of the standard view of things, simply with your own good experience and intelligence in place.
I wouldn’t say for a moment that the hard work isn’t required. And in fact, talents are talked of being “wasted” sometimes on people who don’t seem to develop them or even recognize them.
On the other hand, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with recommending that folks do look to see if they feel they actually can spot “natural inclination,” if you will, some evidence of a native ability relative to what they want to do, rather than expecting to simply “practice, man, practice” all the way to Carnegie Hall. :)
We’re probably closer on this than we are apart (now, there’s a saying), but short of heading off to do some plumbing, I’m probably less convinced that there isn’t a time in some instances to suggest to someone that they reconsider natural proclivities and potentials.
Great discussion, thanks, and I have to break off on comments here to do our cool #FutureChat live Twitter conversation with The FutureBook (everybody welcome) about why we don’t seem to hear as much from traditionally publishing people as from self-publishers. Should be interesting, do join us if you can — 11aET, 4p London time, 8a your time (you’re up with Balzac again, sir!).
-p.
As always, you prodded me to clean out the morning cobwebs, Porter. Hmm, what do I know about this topic and myself? I know I have a talent for finding what I like. And I’ve always been a pretty good mimic (I used to do impressions to entertain my buddies at the bus-stop in junior high). Also, I know from my days in business that knowing I can find what I like and mimic it isn’t enough. I was always finding the flaws and seeking to take whatever I’d copied up a notch. Makes sense to use these natural proclivities, as you call them, in pursuit of writerly excellence (the “hard work” part). I guess I’m okay with calling my propensities “talent.”
Thanks for the jump-start this morning, bro! Looks like a great conversation unfolding here in WU-land today. Have a blast!
Hey, Vaughn,
Sounds to me (and what do I know, of course? lol) that a talent for finding what you like is an excellent thing to have. I know a lot of folks who don’t seem to discover what they like and I’m never sure if that’s a product of becoming distracted by something without stopping to test whether makes sense for a given personality or whether it’s a result of being so bombarded, as we all are today, by too many choices, too many entertainments.
I hear more people say they don’t know what they want to do with their lives than I used to hear. And I can’t help but wonder if that kind of dilemma is actually on the increase or just an anecdotal effect.
But there you are, giving me things to think about, too, so thanks, as always, sir, and have a good weekend!
-p.
I appreciate (as always) your blunt honesty and fearlessness in your posts, Porter. I think you are correct in identifying our current climate as one where it’s not PC anymore to talk talent. Everybody gets a trophy. And I think that your definitions are right on (adaptability and aptitude).
From childhood through college, I knew I had talent because people told me. They put me in accelerated programs and gave me scholarships. I have more special certificates of achievement on file than any kid should. And it made me proud. And lazy. And in my twenties I somehow believed that my natural gifts would be rewarded with little effort.
That kind of self-indulgence is hard to unlearn. I’ve been working on unlearning it for a decade. What helps most in that unlearning process? The industry! The industry! Working in publishing for the past twelve years has effectively stripped me of my pride and forced me to start working hard, improving on my natural talent, and developing humility I never had as a young person.
Talent is an important base. But success comes from hard work and perseverance. :)
Erin –
Next time I call you to do the piece! :) What a terrific reading you’ve given me (and much too kind, you’re so generous). d
Not only do I understand your experience of having to learn, in a sense, to fight for what was important in your own array of talents … and not only do I really like hearing you say that it’s in publishing that you’ve been able to learn this (there could be no higher compliment to the industry! the industry!) … but I have also had the experience of having to say to people at times that each person has a right to choose which talents to access and develop. Don’t know if this will match some of your own experience, but mine at times has involved having to make some hard decisions about which talent or set of them to follow as primary and which to pass on. I’m not at all sure I’ve made the right decision on many occasions, either.
You really put it beautifully about talent being the important base but hard work but hard work and perseverance being the actual proving grounds. Very well said. Really.
Thanks so much, your comment honors my post and I’m better for it.
Cheers!
-p.
I agree with James, I think. And the idea that insecurity is the issue. Writers so often are plagued with the anxiety that perhaps they DON’T have talent that they’re comforted by the idea that it doesn’t matter. They can still make it if they work really really hard. And then there’s the question of quantity: If I have talent, how much? Am I someone who “has a way with words” or am I a literary genius? And if I have a general facility with language, can I somehow inflate that to literary genius status? If not, how high CAN I go?
All of which gets in the way of the basic thing, which is, I like to write, so I write. I enjoy telling stories, so I do that. What difference does the rest make? If I hated doing it, if I didn’t have the passion for it, then I’d put my time and effort into something else–like cooking (I love that image of your grandmother, by the way). Thanks so much for a thought-provoking post, Porter.
Hey, Claire!
You know, one of the things I like most about your comment here is that it feels as if you’re walking through the issue as you go. I feel you asking yourself, “If this, then that?” and what about “this? then also that?”
I love that, and I think it’s a product of your storytelling impulse.
And if I were a crystal-ball totin’ type, I’d probably take a flyer on one of your talents being that storytelling instinct because I see you responding to it so nicely here and following its pathway to respond.
You’re actually getting at what I was saying about “the idea that it doesn’t matter” being a comfort for people who are bothered by how much means they’re “talented enough” or “not enough.” Yep and yep.
If I had my way, I’d like us all to be a tad less driven by our concerns (I’m in there with you) and a tad more willing to say, “let us look dead-on at our various sets of talents and stop trying to say “it doesn’t matter” to make ourselves feel better.
But gosh, ain’t we human? :) What I can tell you — and I look great in this gypsy turban — is that your way of getting at your answer gives me all kinds of ideas that you’re just full of the talents you most want to believe you can. I’d say stop trying to tell yourself it doesn’t matter. Because I think it does to you and I think that’s fantastic.
Go for it.
-p.
Talent and hard work aren’t always enough to propel one to the big sales one may desire. It’s all relative, I suppose, one writer’s “hard work” is another’s “you ain’t doing enough/doing it right/doing what you need to do to succeed” – it’s too much for my pea-headed brain – maybe that makes me gifted but not talented, since I am a kickass writer but one who tends to stare about like the cliched deer in the headlights, then goes and hides in my closet to drown out the white noise of all this hollering that’s giving me the jitters.
Hey, Kathryn,
You know, I think you’re hardly alone. There may well be a propensity — one of my “natural proclivities,” lol, for the hue and cry around us these days. Some people are able to deal with it far better than others, and it can be just deafening and numbingly distracting to many.
If anything, the noise around the industry’s own mega-transitions have made it harder for many, I’m sure to handle the individual creative and business-life transitions they needed to make. I worry that we’re being overrun now by opportunistic start-ups, each claiming to take care of this or that need of writers and other in the biz. Some are excellent and honest — some, I feel sure, are either purposely or unintentionally useless and time-wasting.
Things will not get easier for a bit, just to be clear with you.
We can at least say we know the problem now: Writers must take a newly complex route to understanding their spots in the world both as business people and as creative producers. That much we get.
But the forms, the best paths, the most workable processes for moving forward? Not clear yet. Lots of trial and error. Lots of folks claiming to have found the way, the truth, and the light…only to lead a bunch of folks over a cliff.
If you’re not the type who swims easily in such white water, I recommend you go slowly, allow yourself those staring spells, try not to push yourself to move before you’re ready. Many mistakes are made from haste generated by excitable people around us. And a great many publishing folks are very excitable people.
Hold tight. Your best talent may be freezing in these headlights right now.
-p.
Porter–
Thank you for this “the emperor has no clothes” answer to those who insist talent is little or nothing, learnable technique everything. It’s like nineteenth-century sociology. That’s when the pendulum shifted from the centuries’ old assumption that everything about humans was innate and God’s will (nature)–even one’s class–to the opposite extreme that asserts everything is the product of environment and learning (nurture). Under the second formula, if you push the right developmental/environmental/educational buttons, there’s no one who can’t become the next Shakespeare.
We now know this egalitarian, optimistic idea is simply not true. As I said a while back, denying the importance of talent because it can’t be “quantified” is like denying the existence of more charm and charisma in some of us than in others (yes, once upon a time, there were “charm schools,” but what was taught was etiquette, not charm).
Why do we see this rejection of talent in our time? The answer seems simple: technology has opened the doors to more or less anyone who wants to write. This in turn has spawned a burgeoning cottage industry in the how-to-write business (sorry for the mixed metaphor). Other than the problem of identifying the truly useful how-to books/seminars/workshops/online coaching sessions, etc., from the mediocre ones (and marketing makes this very difficult to do), there’s nothing wrong with the how-to biz. Except for one thing: denying talent is also a way of generating false hope and therefore expanding the pool of how-to book buyers.
But there’s something else people in the book biz don’t like talking about: the importance of luck and timing. No one wants to talk about it, because no how-to book can be written on the subject. But the simple truth is that luck in its many forms and fortuitous moments (along with good looks and charm) has probably had as much to do with making for successful writing careers as either talent or mastery of technique.
But after having said all this, I must also agree with James Scott Bell. As he has rightly pointed out, the issue facing any writer is to identify what he/she can gain some control over. It can’t be luck or talent, but to some degree it is possible to control the energy and effort devoted to learning craft.
Hey, Barry,
Thanks for this good note, no problem with anything you’re saying here.
I think that in time we’ll be able to chart a peculiar pattern in social development that led first from a very, very rightful desire to expand opportunity for all to a pretty incredible overdrive, that politically correct thing that now has us by the throat — say nothing against anyone, no one does anything better than anyone else, amateurism is more noble than expertise, etc.
That pendulum you speak of has swung way past its mark, in other words, and left us feeling that any recognition of speciality is inappropriate.
At such times, surely, it’s the individual’s job to look at him- or herself and decide what really counts as a propensity for some direction in life — a talent — and what is, as you’re pointing out, merely a reaction to the fact that anyone today CAN publish a book (but probably shouldn’t — there are too many books and there are too many bad would-be writers).
As great a friend and colleague as James Scott Bell is, I don’t think he’d mind my also pointing out that he makes a part of his living on teaching others in writing. He has a vested interest, in other words, in the message that everyone can get better at the craft. In truth, most everyone can get, probably, at least a little better in the craft of writing, yes. Does that mean everyone has any business writing? Of course not. But a certain industry — to which you allude — is part of the result and the business of supporting armies of people in thinking that for some reason they should be writing and publishing is, at present, a big one. An awfully big one.
Thanks again for your good comment, and for reading, as always,
-p.
No word of a lie, my old notes from my first manuscript have this scribbled on the top:
I am no literary genius. But I can spin a tale to rapture.
And what fun I will have doing so.
Denise Willson
Author of A Keeper’s Truth and GOT
You, Denise, in a phrase? Are all set.
It sounds to me as if you saw clearly what you needed and wanted for yourself on that first manuscript. It’s an enviable thing to have been able to move so well so early.
Congrats on that perception of talent and skill and enjoyment. And thanks for sharing it!
-p.
Ah, Mr. Anderson. If I need someone to make me think more than I really want to, I can count on you. There is no doubt that writing is 90% hard work and 20% talent (math is not a requirement). The question posed is: will the hard work even be attempted without the talent?
I suggest not. I’ve never met someone who had an overwhelming desire to write a book, yet could not conjure a plot nor construct a legible sentence. Even if someone without talent had a moment in her life when something inside her screamed “write a novel!”, she’d surely give up after one discouraging session at the keyboard and schedule an exorcism to remove the demons of bad advice from her soul.
My assumption is this: if you read blogs like this instead of visiting a web site that offers scantily clad women or cute puppies, and you’ve been sitting at a Macbook you bought on the one-year-same-as-cash plan every night while normal people conduct labotomy-by-sitcom, then you’ve probably got some talent acting as the foundation to that 80% of hard work.
People simply aren’t willing to work hard at something for which they suck at. I would love to pitch in the World Series. And I would be willing to bust my ass to get there if I had even an inkling of athletic ability. However, since I come from a long line of little league right-fielders who chanted to the batter “don’t hit it to me don’t hit to me…”, then there’s no way I’m risking a sunburn to achieve my World Series dream.
Yes hard work must happen. But without that pilot light of talent, it just won’t get you far. Happy Friday, sir (like it matters…we’ll all be hovered over the Mac tomorrow). Thanks for the post.
LOL. Ron — each time you address me as “Mr. Anderson,” I hear that voice from The Matrix and I feel terribly Keanu Reeve about the whole situation. Thank you for that. Any day I feel even remotely Keanu is a good day. :)
You also make me grateful I have no inclination to pitch in the World Series. Thus, I can continue to visit my Web sites with scantily clad puppies and cute women. Did I get that right?
Seriously, thanks for the entertaining comment here, much appreciated.
I like how closely you’re aligning the talent with the work. This is my position (as I have explained in a Magna Carta-length comment back to Jane Friedman). I actually think that if the talent exists, the willingness to “Do the Work,” as our beloved Steven Pressfield puts it, comes onboard, built-in, ready to wear, and OEM.
You say it well: “Without that pilot light of talent…”
Well done, and Keanu sends his best.
-p.
I am going to have to respectfully disagree with you on this. I see a lot more writers and potential writers curling up in the “talent” security blanket, which keeps them from reaching their potential.
I’ve had some writers smugly suggest that if they had spent as much time as I did/do writing, revising, and editing my books and short stories and queries and keeping up with the publishing ins and outs and reading a lot of books and researching agents and…etc…etc…then they’d probably have a book deal too.
To which I shrug and say, “Yeah, probably….”
And on the question of teaching, I once had an agent tell me I had that “unteachable quality” that everyone wants and few have: voice.
But, I kid you not, I took a class on voice (with William Loizeaux at Johns Hopkins!) and I can point to that specific class in terms of when my writing shifted. I know Bill didn’t “give” me my voice, but through his guidance and the analysis of many other voices, I was able to parse out the kind of writer I wanted to be.
Yeah, I guess the voice was already in me, but, doesn’t everyone, writers and nonwriters, have voice? It’s getting that voice on the page that is tricky and I think it can be taught.
We all want to think we’re special, and talent is a good way to say, “Look, I have something no one else has!” It makes you feel bright and shiny.
But it isn’t real.
I agree. Voice can be taught. I do think a certain ear for prose gives you a leg up, and I imagine there are people who are “prose deaf” just as there are those who are “tone deaf.” But voice encompasses more than just style: it’s attitude, world view, passion, empathy all rolled into the words you put onto the page. It speaks to the total commitment of the writer.
And yeah, I’d agree with the old perspiration/inspiration dichotomy. Discipline matters.
But I think Porter’s point is that women especially are not encouraged to acknowledge their talent or their intelligence as much as men. (I majored in math, and the only woman in my classes was the daughter of one of our professors.) The psychotherapist Karen Horney once defined masculinity as “an anxiety-tinged narcissism,” precisely because it’s just “assumed” boys will accomplish, whether they have the talent or brains or not. And I think this becomes a kind of social wish fulfillment, leaving many women in the dust.
It’s changing, certainly, but I don’t think getting women to accept and embrace their native talents or intelligence as much as men do will somehow undermine their work ethic. Hope not. Because again, you’re right. That’s the real determining factor.
Yes, I definitely see what you’re saying and think there’s a lot of truth to it. I’ve heard it’s important to praise kids for what they do (that’s a great Lego building!) and not what they are (you look so pretty today!) and I think for whatever reason boys tend to get the earlier kinds of comments and girls get the latter.
(And I agree with an above comment along the doing vs. being train. I think a lot of people want to BE writers…but they don’t actually want to sit down and write…heh).
I also am not trying to deny nature in all of this. I definitely think we’re all a combination of nature/nurture. Perhaps short people are less likely to be good at basketball. But that doesn’t mean they can’t be, and it certainly doesn’t mean that all tall people are good at basketball. I think nature only goes so far in terms of accomplishments and it very rarely (if ever) can be a substitute for work.
And, sure, perhaps not everyone has the “innate” talent to write, but I’d wager a lot more people out there do than self-proclaimed “talented” writers would care to admit.
Just hitting your last line, Caitlin (I’m sure you’ve had quite enough of me), in the current cultural stance on talent vs. amateur-cultism, I think that someone willing to proclaim his or her “talent” is probably quite considered, thoughtful, and in touch with a great deal of selfhood that I — speaking only for myself — would be careful about dismissing lightly.
It is not easy today to claim that you find in yourself a sense of talent, of grace, of genius. Our world hates this, as you know. Something brave is involved in the development and unguarded revelation of one’s intelligence, gifts, and intentions.
So yet again, I’ll disagree with your — collegially and with respect — in saying that I want women, as well as men, to have the chance to find and cultivate their talents, their actual innate inclinations, without this pop-entertainment denigration of true art impeding them.
That’s not much to ask, is it? LOL
-p.
All good points and I definitely haven’t had enough of you. This was all very thought-provoking and I always appreciate a good debate. Thank you. :)
You’re a grand sport, and that’s what makes these discussions so wonderful, Caitlin! Thanks for all the stimulating back-and-forth here, it enriches the whole event hugely!
-p.
When I was getting my PhD in Nuclear Engineering, I had a talk with a woman Dean of Engineering about the difference (a long time ago, in a different world) between the women students and the men.
It was: if the women got less than an A in the class, they concluded they weren’t any good at engineering – and dropped out. If a guy got a C in a class, he just signed up for the next one: the decision to be an engineer had been made previously, and there was no reason to change it, not in his mind. So we lost a lot of women that way – and those who were left were extraordinary and few.
Those were mostly American undergraduate students. I grew up in Mexico. I had to fight my way there – I was not brought up to excel as a woman in a man’s world (picture my poor mother wringing her hands as I beat my boyfriend at chess) – and I had one rule: if they didn’t think I could do it, they could kick me out – but I wasn’t going to do them the favor of quitting.
Society bears much of the fault – and all of the loss – for that ‘lack of self-esteem’ that keeps women AND men from developing their best talents. I’m just glad that somewhere along the way I developed the stubbornness to keep trying. ‘Cause you get nowhere if you stop trying.
Your reward, of course, Alicia — as I’m sure I don’t have to tell you — is the fact that your proud allegiance to yourself has resulted in your being far more in touch with your actual selfhood than anything the people who oppress women so stupidly will ever achieve.
I would just go so far as to say that this has to do with your own special form of talent. It is a gift, even one worth the work of development, to know your rightful place and purpose, especially in younger years. Never discount this as one of the talents you’ve found in yourself, nor deny the effort you’ve put into developing its usefulness to you.
These things are who you are. And this is why I’m ready to see society stop dismissing talent. Just look at yours. Fantastic.
-p.
Ohhhhhh, you’re trying to drag me into the mire of my own fascination with gender issues now, David. :) LOL
Seriously, yes, you’re exactly right — and I must credit Heidi Grant Halvorson for her good write-up (brought to us by Suzannah Windsor Freeman) — on the question of how many women and men experience their talents and accomplishments in a society so ridiculously bent for so many centuries on oppressing women.
Horney’s conceptualization of masculinities (I recognize many, as Michael Kimmel has helped guide us to do) is correct. I’d only add that the expectation of accomplishment by boys is its own hell. This does NOT make up for the inexcusable sufferings of women but it does, I hope, just register the fact that there is a dreadful price being paid by guys, too, in the ancient horrors of male hegemony.
So all that less than happy material being cleared, you’re right, I think – women need, as do men, to understand that their ability to work for what their talents incline them to do is not only their right but also their salvation. As you say, “that is the determining factor.”
-p.
Hey, Cailin,
You’re completely wrong, of course, but I forgive you.
Kidding!
Seriously, it’s not only fine to disagree with me on this but thoroughly valid if your experience has differed.
I’m not about to support anybody using “talent” as a security blanket and trying to avoid the work of excellence. As I’m saying (at ridiculous length) in a response below to my friend Jane Friedman, however, I think the hard work is a direct product and component of the talent. If you’re talented, in other words, you’re inclined to DO the hard work to become a good as possible at doing what you love. I see the work instinct as an onboard element of the talent, itself, not a separate thing. So you’re right — anybody who says, “I’m talented” and sits around waiting for accolades? Kill that person at once. :)
And I’m very happy to hear that you’ve learned voice in your studies. Good for you. I wouldn’t suggest (I didn’t, did I?) that voice could only be a gift of the talent faeries? Not at all. I think that a great deal of successful written communication, including voice, can be learned and consciously developed.
I’d simply caution you against feeling that anyone who is in touch with genuine talent is simply out to feel “bright and shiny.”
If you read a little of Josh Malerman’s new BIRD BOX (his debut http://amzn.to/1kv9PkB ) you’ll find yourself in touch with an astonishingly rich, controlled voice. This is the book for which Hitchcock needed to live on. Malerman is so clearly talented that there’s probably no one ready to say otherwise. However. He wrote 17 complete novels prior to this one and five unfinished ones. I interviewed him for Thought Catalog: http://bit.ly/1qdIJ2w
I would tell you that (a) the man has exceptional talent and (b) it’s PART OF that talent that led him to work for so many years before letting any of his manuscripts get out. This is what I’m talking about. The talent is what drives the work, not some separate thing. Those who use “talent” as a comfortable claim are liars. And I think you can tell from my post that those are not the people I’m interested in.
No, I will cheerfully disagree with you. I believe that talent is much more important and much more valid than “a good way to say, ‘Look, I have something no one else has!'”
When I see genuine talent, as I do in Malerman, I will do all I can to promote it, raise it up, call it to everyone’s attention, even yours.
Talent exists. I believe that our social construct at the moment is wrongly dissing it, a rather stupid cultural mistake in favor of amateurism. Things will again shift, mark my word.
And I seriously, honestly appreciate your input and your time in offering it. Our disagreement means no disrespect from my side. I’m a critic. We love to disagree. :)
Cheers,
-p.
Caitlin-
A class on POV sounds really cool.
Your comments remind me of a quote attributed to golfer Ben Hogan: “The more I work, the luckier I get.” (You can substitute “more talented” for “luckier” there, I think.)
He was a talented guy, but also generally acknowledged as almost certainly the hardest worker in the history of the sport.
Without a doubt, the people I’ve met who are at the pinnacle of their profession also are – here’s a shock – the ones who’ve worked the hardest.
Seems like it’s not just drive that does it, though. There’s a desire to pursue a particular vocation or avocation – and maybe that comes from a certain talent. (I might be able to force myself to become a great mathematician, but there’s sure no desire to do that.)
And, btw, I always like seeing someone who’ll say: I disagree.
Good luck with your book!
Hey, Jim,
Thanks for jumping in here — I wholeheartedly agree with your pleasure in Caitlin’s comments (and that ability to announce disagreement, so easily forgotten in our why-can’t-we-all-just-get-along? age.
I’d point out that you’re very near what I’m saying in terms of desire/interest — those natural inclinations, as I call them — being a signal of a talent or aptitude. An affinity.
A good talent, to my mind, has both that component of interest (if I have a “talent” for modern dance, I have an interest in pursuing it) AND the willingness to work on develop it (if I have that “talent” for modern dance, I’m also ready to get back into the studio and get through my barre and floor work before rehearsal).
So right you are, and thanks for getting into it with us.
-p.
Hi, Porter.
Every novel I begin overwhelms me. I never feel I can possibly manage to accomplish what I’m setting out to do. And every book becomes harder, because I’m so much wiser to what’s needed, where the pitfalls are, where my own shortcomings are. (This only gets worse if I read a really good book written by someone else.)
And yet every new book is full of promise. Once the work begins I start to feel the enjoyment, the thrill and the mystery and the challenge for lack of a better way to put it. From that point on I’m a sponge for anything and everything that I can use to better the book.
And then when it’s done, I realize I didn’t, indeed, get my hands completely around the thing I saw in my mind’s eye. There’s a gratifying sense of accomplishment and a nagging sense I fell short.
And so I begin again…
I hear from many writer friends their process isn’t much different. Be interested to hear from others on this one. Meanwhile, thanks again for the great post.
Absurdly yours,
Sisyphus
Well, Sisyphus, lol,
I don’t think we’d be too far off the mark if we gave a nod for talent to the guy who keeps going back to roll that stone up the hill.
Inasmuch as Jane Friedman (she’s in comments below) and I tend to circle each other on this issue, I think it’s safe to say that what we call an aptitude or talent may very well BE the ability to work hard, to work repeatedly, to keep trying. Will that lead to the sort of success one has in mind? Maybe not. But know that you’re surrounded by people who flake out on the first big roll down the hill. Never try again.
I have a friend who got some negative comments years ago on a chapter or two of a novel she’d written and posted. The book has a lot of promise, actully. But she has never returned to it or written anything else. The first sign of criticism threw her permanently off the boat.
That, to me, indicates a lack of the component of talent that you’re talking about and can demonstrate so handsomely. Whatever it is you’re trying to write, you’re committed to it. Celebrate that all day and night because that may, in fact, be THE fundamental gift — the ability to stay at it.
Jane (aka “Porter’s Brain”) is quite intent on the persistence factor, and I don’t think she’s wrong. It’s highly, highly indicative of what will succeed and what won’t. Her and my only difference is that I think I see the persistence as part and parcel of the talent.
I’d say you’re a good example of that. If you can keep rolling that thing up the hill, I salute you.
-p.
As always, you are provocative. Like some others before me have said, talent has much to do with ability and passion that spurs the hard work necessary to achieve something good. Your grandmother sounds much like my mother — she too cooked without recipes and just knew how to blend spices. I suspect she learned in her mother’s kitchen. I was a sous chef for my mother and learned by doing. I love putzing around the kitchen, as does my daughter. This is practice! And practice makes perfect.
I look at my own life and I cannot say I was ever *talented* at anything in particular, but I recognize in myself the intense desire to know things, and I’ve honored that by studying and practicing. I can play the piano, sing, dance, do scientific investigations, cook, sew, garden, write, and mother. However, I am not brilliant like some I know in these areas. But the striving, the doing, all bring me great joy and so I continue.
So, in summary, I’d say hard work and perseverance count more than talent. Talent is the spark that gets the fire going.
ps: you’ll never get me to bat. I run away from flying objects.
Hey, Vijaya,
No worries, I’ll come near you with no bats. :)
And I would say, in fact, that your curiosity and interest in knowing things, in fact, IS a form of talent, a gift — obviously one that prompts you to work hard on things and acquire skills and capabilities far beyond many things I can do. (I suck at mothering, just ask my beagle, lol.)
I love what you’re saying here and would suggest only that you not overlook your instinct to learn and know things. This is a gift that a surprising number of people don’t have. I’m constantly running into folks who can watch some peculiar thing going on without the slightest interest.
(Example: Near me, huge cruise liners dock daily in the Port of Tampa. As they pull out, the dock crews and ship’s workers go through an astonishing array of fascinating tasks — releasing massive ropes, shifting supply barges the size of a houses, getting a tugboat into place, closing gangways and other supply ports, testing sophisticated communication and safety equipment … and you see people on deck paying no attention whatever to this incredible ballet of operations going on all around them, oblivious, not a trace of curiosity. To my mind? They’re losing out.)
Stay curious and engaged. You may be the most talented among us. :)
-p.
Wonderful thoughts, Porter, and a topic that all too often raises hackles. I suppose you could use an art analogy: anyone can pick up a pen and draw, but not everyone produces naturally something that will be marvelled at. Anyone who really wants to be an artist can go to art school, learn the techniques, and become a wonderful artisan, a master of their craft, but they might wrestle every time, and a perceptive collector will spot the fine line between synthetic and organic.
One can write from the heart, but this can mean two different things: you really want to be a writer, or you really are a writer. It’s a tough thing to discern, but there is something to be said about enjoying your work, even when it’s hard – and readers, like art collectors, spot the difference.
As an added consideration: talent is not static. I believe talent evolves with one’s unique life journey. Sometimes the writing flower unfolds later in life, when rich memories of caviar and late nights smoking and playing poker connect one to something entirely different than, perhaps, they might have been connected to during a troubled youth (the reverse is also true). Sometimes it takes a trauma, or a victory (marriage, having children, buying a house, radically changing one’s work). Either way, writing is hard work, but when were “trying”, rather than “letting”, our hard work only makes the hard work harder.
Some thought for Friday.
John,
How good of you to bring this analogy of discerning art collectors to the table. I’m glad to see someone take the viewpoint of the reader and what may be perceived by that observer of talent and craft and diligence and otherwise.
You also bring up an intriguing point about “letting” the work of strong talent happen, rather than forcing it. Such a trap for so many of us. How often we “effort” (a newsroom verb, I’m afraid) all day and night, only to kill our best instincts with that struggle.
I wonder if the blessing of genuine talent isn’t that it knows what part of the job is to e allowed, and what part is to be “efforted?” If talent is anything at all, it may be, as Don Maass is suggesting, bound up in a self-knowledge that in gentler ages we’d call wisdom.
Thanks for yours and for taking the time to share it.
-p.
Please, please, puh-leeze … ‘effort’ isn’t a verb, newsroom or otherwise.
Oh, but it is in the slang of newsrooms, my friend. Something explodes in Baghdad? At CNN, they are “efforting video” … meaning someone has been dispatched to try to get into the secured zone to open a camera. Many businesses have their usage of the language, some of it wonderfully colorful. I’ve always loved Variety’s phrases … as when a star leaves a Broadway show, she “ankles” the production. :)
Thanks Porter.
My post was rooted in personal experience, which might be why it was more poignant than usual. Two years “efforting” (sorry, Jim) gave me a finished, polished novel, but writing the query broke me: I discovered that there was a crack in the facade. Two years “trying” gave me a Frankenstein (a metaphor, not a sequel).
I am man of principal, so even though I could have sent it away or even self-published, I fear I’d regret it. Imagine poor Rachmaninov when no one clapped after his first Symphony (I’d have a nervous breakdown too); it’s quite the same for an author when his or her book is out and it gets ignored, but your true readers (not your friends and family) are too polite to tell you why.
So, it was sad walking away, but as a consolation I learned a lot and have gained some distance. There has been a shift for me, given that I recently married, bought a house, and changed my career (let all supportive spouses be blessed); it’s reflecting in everything I’m doing now, especially writing. Now I’m “letting”. I have no regrets, and in fact am quite excited to write something new and to continue connecting to this exotic heart that beats each time I sit down with pen and coffee and listen to birdsong.
I’m not going to deny that some people have a natural aptitude for writing fiction. Usually, it’s a combination of inherent ability and the “ten thousand hours” of reading and practice.
I also think that “talent” is a moving target. Even on this site, I’ve seen people panning popular works, dismissing them, wondering at the state of the reading public in general for supporting these “talentless hacks.”
The thing is, these writers DO have talent — an unerring talent for finding their audience, and connecting on a visceral level.
I also don’t think it’s a matter of PC to not discuss talent. I agree with James — it’s not under your control. The best we can do is weigh the odds in our favor, with those elements that are.
One of the most important elements: attitude. One of the things I loved about the book MONEYBALL was the observation that Billy Beane had an almost unnatural aptitude, a glorious talent for the game — but his perfectionism and negativity made him incapable of playing at that highest level. He couldn’t handle the pressure.
To focus on whether one has “talent” or not, to focus on judging if others have it, is to get sucked down that negative rabbit hole, in my opinion. It robs me of energy I need for writing. I’m going to write anyway, whether I am deemed “talented” or not. So why waste my time?
Hi, Cathy,
Thanks for your input here.
There are, of course, many people who use the term “talent” in so loose a way that it means nothing. The phrase “talentless hacks” is an instance of that and I hope you’ll note that at no point in my post have I discussed any type of work — popular, classical, or otherwise — as being at the heart of what I’m saying.
I’m talking of the writer, regardless of what he or she may produce, from Homer to Jackie Collins.
Talent is an issue for each of us to consider. The popular world’s tendency to dismiss it as a valid factor (and to think of it as being either claimed by or aligned with the academic and classical worlds) is foolish.
Any writer can, of course, be talented.
Any talent will need to be developed by work.
Any use of “talent” as a condemnatory judgment is probably paranoid.
And any idea of being so out of control as to not recognize your own talent and your own fine efforts in developing it? — that, I would submit, could be the only negative.
Whatever you do or write or say or think, your innate gifts and inclinations and aptitudes are yours, they’re radiant, they’re to be loved and enriched. And the intern assigned to write classified ads at the local newspaper may be the most talented among us.
Thanks again and all the best,
-p.
What an interesting discussion! And I suppose I’ve been living in a cave because I didn’t realize “talent” was a hot button issue. Seems silly. Everyone has a talent for something. Maybe the trouble is that people put those talents into a hierarchy? As in, my talent for writing is better than your talent for hair dressing? Which is sad. We all deserve to be able to shout from the mountaintops, no matter what our talents.
I don’t know. I do know that not everyone can write. There’s a rhythm to it. Like music. And really, I may get slammed for this, but you can work your patoot off and still never quite get the rhythm. Tone deaf people will never be able to “learn” how to hit the notes, and to this end, I believe there are tone deaf writers who will never learn how to spin a tale. Should tone deaf people stop singing? Or writing? Absolutely not! If it’s what they love. But they probably shouldn’t try out for American Idol or dream of the Pulitzer.
However! I think people are more talented than they give themselves credit for and far more often I read things that aren’t from tone deaf people, but from people who just haven’t worked through their kinks yet.
And I won’t even get into genius, which is a whole different enchilada. Art & Fear basically says, “A genius comes along once a generation and you’re not it.” It’s all about the work, built on top of the talent, that makes things happen, imho.
Right, Tracy,
KV and I were discussing the comparison with singing, too — in which we have little trouble saying that a tone-deaf person, sweet as he may be, simply won’t manage as a “talented singer,” and yet we’re very hesitant to say that a writer without that spark of rhythm you’re talking to isn’t a talented writer.
I think you’re getting at another interesting aspect of this, which involves what we think of as correct goals. The tone-deaf singer should be happy singing for himself, even if he’d run the rest of us out of the room. But these days, our culture tends to indicate that you have to “do something” with your work, your avocation, get yourself onto American Idol or otherwise embarrass yourself going way out on a limb on which you have no busiiness.
It’s an odd element of the way things seem these days. When I was very young, there was a show called Ted Mack’s Original (as if anyone would copy it) Amateur Hour. And it was just that. Amateurs arrived on TV to sing or dance or play some instrument. This was a highly defined niche of TV entertainment at the time. Nowadays, this is absolutely everywhere. The idea of amateur entertainment and the lure of “being discovered performing it has overtaken a lot of things — including, I’m afraid, our willingness to say, “You know, dear, you simply seem to have no talent whatever for doing that.”
It’s an odd development in the feel-good society, isn’t it? We’re all talented on this bus. And don’t say otherwise because you might hurt somebody’s feelings.
:) Thanks for your input,
-p.
I think perhaps the problem in the US in accepting the concept of talent is ingrained from the get go, with the Puritan work ethic. You know that stuff they feed you growing up, “idle hands are the devil’s workshop” etc. etc. It leads down a tricky path of hellish beliefs, because if someone is naturally good at something without having the virtue of hard work, where did that talent come from? Hmmm…the Satan Lady from Saturday Night Live knows… she’d put an “S” in talent.
But, there is also truth in that old adage “practice makes perfect”. Combine natural talent with the honing of one’s craft, and you get Shakespeare. Which from the pilgrim POV I suppose would be a sort of blasphemy. A marriage of angels and devils…
Really interesting points, Bernadette!
We do, in a sense, actually mistrust something that isn’t the result of hard work.
I cannot tell you how many times I’ve been jealous of “gene babies,” the models who look like everyone else wants to look and yet don’t even have to work out because their genes — maybe comparable as a form of physical “talent” — form and maintain their muscles’ shape, size, and tone perfectly without them having to suffer it out at the gym.
And similarly, anyone who seems to just be wonderful at something without having to “pay their dues” is suspect. (Even though a lot of them are working, out of sight, on their 10,000 hours, and some of those gene babies are actually doing some work on the Smith machine and lying about it!.)
This really can probably translate into this over-emphasis on the work end that tends to discount the innate gifts — the satanic part, as you’re framing it. Without doing the work God wants us to do, we must be helped by the Darker Forces if we’re looking good and succeeding.
Fascinating, huh? I wonder what we’ll make of this period in our cultural history when we look back at it in 50 years. How will we explain to folks that we decided to dismiss talent and simply claim that good, hard work was all we needed.
You’re right. The Puritans would love us. :)
-p.
I definitely agree. Talent, passion, and hard work–you need all of them. Learning to develop that talent takes years, but there’s always some small aspect or another that’s intuitive for a person with a natural inclination toward something (like writing).
It’s amazing how people deny the role of talent in some arts and not in others. With singing, we’re able to accept that no matter how hard some people work or how many lessons they take, they will never be good singers; their vocal chords are designed by nature and are bound by nature’s limitations. Why can’t we accept that the same is true for writing?
But no amount of talent will accomplish anything if you don’t develop and refine it with massive amounts of hard work.
OH, what a great, great point KV! (Are you really called KV? How cool.)
I wish I’d thought of it.
Exactly, exactly. If somebody loves to sing and yet is tone deaf (there actually are such folks, amazingly), we simply are never going to be able to say that — super souls that they are — they’re “talented” singers. They may be robust singers, generous singers, eager singers, but probably not “talented” singers because a certain set of natural attributes are understood to be needed for us to be able to name them “talented” singers.
And yet, as you say, in writing…? Not so much. We’re out here waffling around about it, day in and day out. It’s so dreadfully hard for us to say to someone, “You know, darling, you just suck as a writer, as much as we love you.”
Again, I think this comes from a social condition of the moment, this focus on the do-it-yourself, everybody-can-be-anything, damn-the-experts era we’re in.
Just read enough guidebooks and you’re done, lol. I’m simplifying, of course, but the “Cult of the Amateur,” as Andrew Keen’s book has called it, really has us in its thrall these days. And part of that amateur ethos can be (not always, but can be) that talent is not necessary. Just work on it and you’ll be fine.
Tell that to our tone-deaf singer.
I’m totally with you that for the genuinely talented, the work cannot be bypassed, no question.
And so good of you to chime in, thanks. I’m humming your comment as I leave … hopefully on pitch. :)
-p.
This reminds me of pro beach volleyball player Gabrielle Reece’s quest to join the LPGA tour.
It made sense. She had already proven she could reach the top of a sport. Gifted physically, great coordination, athletic. How hard could it be to hit a ball that’s just sitting there with a stick literally designed by rocket scientists (yup, the golf manufacturer’s pay better than NASA).
And she did it right. Went to get all the instruction she could ever need from the top instructor in the world, Buch Harmon – who at the time was Tiger’s golf instructor. Spent tons of time (and being a pro athlete she understood the value of practice) working on her game.
And…
Well, that’s the end. ‘Cause she couldn’t make it.
http://www.golfwrx.com/forums/topic/80011-what-happened-to-gabrielle-reeces-quest-to-join-the-lpga-tour/
Right, great example, Jim.
And, of course, many folks DO have talents for more than one great pursuit or another. This can create troubling decisions as to what to develop and what not to work on. A lot of us, when we muse that we’d like to have another career to devote to one thing or another are, in fact, responding to the prompts of such multiple gifts.
-p.
Good topic!
I think to find your talent you have to do what you love doing, and only because you really, honestly love doing it. And if it turns out you haven’t really got an aptitude for something you love, at least you’re having a good time.
Hey, Andrea!
Thanks for the input.
I think our only difference may be in a chicken or egg question. To me, the talent is first. It’s there. And it prompts you to try something. Because you already love it. Enough talent, and you’ll be willing to work your head off to get good at it.
As you say, you’re having fun. But in my formulation, it’s because a talent — or “aptitude” or “inclination” got you going. Not through trial and error.
As I say, chicken or egg. Great having you drop in!
-p.
Hey Porter,
Insightful and as provocative as ever, I see! Always love reading your posts. Now I would never, ever tell a Southern gentleman that his beloved grandmother wasn’t as wonderfully talented as he believed her to be. No, sir. I value my life too much. Coming from a long line of fabulous Southern cooks myself, the following I know to be true. Great cooking requires three things: a love of the art, for it is an art, a talent for the skills required to produce it, and time spent in the kitchen. I suspect the very talented grandmother had probably practiced her art at least three times a day since she was a girl. By the time she had grandchildren, she had honed her art to the perfection that her grandson so lovingly remembers. I wonder, however, what she would have had to say about the question of acknowledging talent. If she was like the Southern ladies of the older generations whom I have known, she would have blushed becomingly, said a gracious, but brief thank you, and changed the subject. Modesty would have been as deeply ingrained in her as her Southern drawl. Whether today’s reluctance to acknowledge talent comes from modesty is more difficult to determine. I rather cynically suspect that provocative titles are employed as marketing tools as opposed to being proposed as ultimate truth.
Rather than saying talent is crap, I believe we should say that it isn’t enough. Writing is a skill, just like learning to play the piano or throw a football. It must be practiced in order for the underlying talent to be realized to its fullest. This is where the hard work lives.
I’m with you, Linda —
Zola Walker Campbell (or “Lalla,” as we called her) did indeed change the subject if praised too highly for the amazing things we were eating at her table. Gratifyingly, however, she did understand her art to carry something of a mystery. She participated in Mom’s attempts to capture and measure those ingredients. She was curious, as we were, as to how she managed to pull off her feats in the kitchen with such unerring success, even after (you’re right) that lifetime of cooking in which she’d practiced.
So I can happily report that Southern personality that she was, she did also enjoy her own spectacular capabilities and understood them to be something not easily explained.
I’d readily agree with you that talent isn’t enough, quite right. I hope that nothing I say indicates that learning the skills of a profession isn’t important. Those skills, if anything, are the vehicle on which the talent rides: the airline pilot with a special touch for wind currents still has to learn to operate the controls in the cockpit.
What I think I’m finding is that as a culture — on the widest level — we’re tending these days to suggest that the skill-learning element can replace a need for talent. In short, that with enough quiet practice, we can all be Emily Dickenson. And I don’t think that’s the case.
I revere the practice — in the kitchen or at the desk. I bow to it, as you say, as the place “where the hard work lives.”
But I think we’re in danger these days, because it’s not “nice” to talk about talent in the parlor, my fellow Southerner. :) I fear that we’re in danger of making some folks think that enough work will turn them into Dickenson. Or Zola in the kitchen.
And I guess my original motivation here was in questioning that misconception. I don’t think it’s helping us to step around The Talent Question if we’re in danger of making people think that hard work is all they need.
Thanks for the kind words, and for reading and commenting, as ever, Linda!
-p.
Porter, you were and are as clear as ever in your writing. I must confess that I really haven’t given any thought until today to the issue you raise. I’ve been focused on other, more pressing writing related activities. You are absolutely correct that no amount of hard work will take Emily Mediocre and turn her into Emily Dickinson, anymore than years of practice will turn someone into Joshua Bell, Steve Jobs, or Peyton Manning. Those guys possess(ed) world class talents, albeit in vastly different fields. One might work to a level of technical competence, but the extra sparkle that colors(ed) their output would be missing.
One thing that I have noticed for some years and with growing concern, is the increasing lack of introspection and self evaluation in our society. This, I suspect, is at the core of your concern. Understanding one’s personal strengths and weaknesses, having an intimate knowledge of who one is may be an endangered art. As to worrying about my personal amount of talent, I have another confession. I write because I enjoy the creative process. Writing fiction allows me to play let’s pretend all day. My readers tell me they enjoy my work, that it keeps them up way past their bedtime. Through writing, I make the points I want to make and explore the topics that fascinate or disturb me. For me, this is enough. ;-)
Linda, I’d guess that in your approach to your writing and your enjoyment, you’re actually responding to what I classify as a talent — and your “natural inclination” to it — than you might suspect.
Indeed, you’re right that I worry about the lack of introspection, self-evaluation, and sheer personhood we see today.
The culture is an odd one right now, in which pop-entertainment ordains something that presents itself as egalitarianism but which is actually mass mediocrity. Allowing everyone to participate in everything everyday has become more important than finding and supporting the best in our world and celebrating what they give us.
I think I find some resonance in individual sports — ATP tennis being my favorite — for this reason. Someone must win every time. It’s not possible, thankfully, for both players who will end up in the finals at Wimbledon to win. I don’t believe this is bad. But I think there are many people these days who have so deeply ingested the idea of “everything for everybody” that they’d be more comfortable with an absurd, sugary “We’re all winners!” outcome to any competition at all.
Even the well-intentioned fund-raising events called “fun runs” play into this ethos. There are many, many examples of this all over our cultural life now.
We can, of course, be grateful that the impulse, as overwrought as it is, is toward inclusion, not exclusion. This is important. But how intriguing — and sometimes frightening — that we’ve overdone it to such a spectacular level.
Moderation is still the “talent” that may be hardest to find. :)
Thanks again,
-p.
I agree, but I take some comfort, albeit small, from knowing that life in these United States is like the winter weather in Texas. If you don’t like it, wait around for an hour or two. It’ll change. Public opinion is an ever swinging pendulum and it’s gone about as far as it can in eliminating competition from our lives. Sadly, I do not expect it to settle in the middle ground of common sense when it begins its reverse arc. I wonder what would happen if we were inclusive where it really mattered and promoted superior individual achievement where appropriate. Hmmmm!?! What a concept!
About a month ago, I wrote my quarterly column here, and touched on this talent issue, mainly to dismiss it as a factor. Why?
After 10 years of working at Writer’s Digest, and having hundreds of meetings with writers, the No. 1 question I would get asked was: “Should I continue? Do I have what it takes?”
It was the wrong question. These writers hadn’t been writing long enough for anyone to know—or for me to know—the answer to that question. You can’t always tell, not early on.
An MFA professor told me the only way he could tell which students would succeed was purely by who kept writing after there weren’t any more deadlines or coursework.
Sometimes, you have to act “as if” — you have to act as if you do have the talent, as if you are that person who can be a great author.
Whatever talent is, it’s awfully slippery.
Acting “as if.” Good point from the Zen-master mentor. Sounds a bit like “fake it till you make it.” ;-)
And I’m not at all sure that faking it ’til you make it isn’t — at least at some point in every good career — a big factor, Vaughn. lol
There are those guides that insist you BE what you want to be so you’ll DO what those people do and then you’ll HAVE what those people have. It gets awfully pop-psych-y fast, but — as with all things zen — there’s something to it.
Cue the theremin. :)
-p.
Hey, Jane,
Incredibly cool of you to drop by. I actually thought of you as I wrote it because we’ve touched on the issue of “talent” vs. perseverance several times and I’ve been aware of your — rightful — dismissal of the idea as some kind of magical thinking. (To be clear, that’s my term, not one you’ve used in this regard, I think.)
A lot of folks, as you know, try to position talent as a kind of talisman. Hold up a talent to the world and all the barriers will fall down. And, of course, you’re right that without the ability to work, to persevere, to stay on course despite incredible derailments, that talent is, in truth, worth about as much as a plastic cross held up to Anne Rice.
My answer would be that whatever was held up was, in fact, plastic. Not a real talent. And that talented people are too busy working to develop those talents to stand around holding them up, anyway.
I think that if I were to develop these thoughts in terms of the wise comment from that MFA prof you quote, I’d say he’s utterly right. In my mind, a talent’s presence — as a natural inclination, meaning it’s something that you not just CAN do but also WANT to do — comes with that perseverance onboard.
The more talented? The more you work.
I think they’re a matched set. Talent should come with the fortitude to develop it, even the interest in developing it.
Which makes me agree with you that the “Do I have what it takes?” question is almost always wrong. In fact, I worry when I see people whom I consider gifted asking that question because I’m afraid it means that their talent hasn’t come imbued with enough “inclination” — will to work. They’re not going to be able to sustain it. In blunt terms, they’re just not that talented. To stop and ask, “Do I have what it takes?” can really only mean “I don’t think I have what it takes” or “I’m faltering in my need to keep going and find OUT if I have what it takes.” That, in my book, means a weakly developed aptitude…probably someone who, no, sadly, won’t make it unless a whole lot of luck intervenes and does it for them.
What it takes is that work and persistence you’re talking about. And it should come as part and parcel of the talent.
This is one reason I always mistrust successful people, when they say two things to journalists like me who interview them.
(1) “Oh, every day I worried that I may not have what it takes.” I don’t believe that. I think that people operating on the strength of real talent in themselves don’t stand around doubting what they’re up to. They’re working too hard, as you say, to get it done.
(2) “No, never in my wildest dreams did I think I could be this successful.” Oh, yes they did. In their tamest dreams, I think they’re picking up Oscars. A well-built talent comes with an understanding of both the kind of hard work you’re pointing out is crucial AND with an understanding of where it can take someone if enough work is applied. Mind you, the “results-oriented path” may not be the most attractive or even healthy — those who are hanging on for that Oscar may be thwarted by the Academy despite all the hard work in the world. But I don’t think that many talented, hard-working souls get through it all without knowing what benefits may accrue if things go well. We all have an acceptance speech in our pockets. :)
A kind of parallel: In the past, as you know, I’ve written pretty derisively of the “need” to “find inspiration.” I’m never impressed with folks who have to go to a source of motivational input each day to approach the keyboard. Those Lena Horne people who have to belieeeeeve in themselves. To me, one’s creative work IS the inspiration. And if you’re having to look outside the work to belieeeeeve in yourself, then very probably the work, itself, is not the right work.
I may be incorrectly conflating things here, but I believe that “inspiration” — like the will to work hard for something — is an onboard feature of the talent, the aptitude. (I see Don below us here in comments preferring the term “aptitude,” and I think he may be right.)
So translating all this into the case of a generic writer today, if that writer can’t find an aptitude in him- or herself strong enough to come WITH the zeal to stick with it — through training, trial and error, thick and thin, dodges and switches — then our generic writer probably does not, actually, have what on the street is called “talent.” No work ethic? No true aptitude or talent.
It’s true that we hear at times about someone who is “so talented but he does nothing with it” … or “incredibly gifted, but too lazy to do anything about it.” I actually don’t believe these are accurate lines. For one thing, they’re inevitably people saying this about other people. I’m not sure others can see into our banks of talent and tell whether we’re “incredibly gifted” or “so talented.” I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone say to me, “You know, I’ve got this talent for such-and-such but I’ve never done a thing with it.”
I do think we’re doing a lot of bobbing and weaving about the term “talent” — slippery, just as you say — these days because we are in The Era of the Do It Yourself Success. We’ve decided that if you read enough “bookbooks,” as I call them, about how to write a book, that you’ll be a good writer someday. And I think I don’t buy it. I think we’re trying not to face the fact that a lot of fine, well-intentioned people, maybe folks we know and love, are being led to think that with good enough instructions and those 10,000 hours of practice, they can all be Josh Malerman, maybe even Joan Didion. And I think they’re going to be disappointed.
But, boy, could I be wrong! And if as many people as are trying to write these days DO succeed? … whoa, we are going to have Didions and Malermans in every grocery store aisle in the country. :) Unless talent IS a factor, the DIY culture is about to roll over us with more spectacular writing than we’ll know what to do with.
I’m with you. And Steven Pressfield, You have to “Do the Work.” My wrinkle on that is that the talent spurs the work. The work, then, becomes a signal to the rest of us, like white smoke over the Vatican. It means we’ve got a live one! :)
-p.
Porter-
I think a better word than “talent” is “aptitude”. Some people’s DNA sequences and brain motherboards may give them an edge on the verbal SAT’s and other tests–like writing to publish. But that is not to say they’ll get perfect scores or even good ones.
Aptitude is nice to have but without learning and practice what good is it? There’s a craft to writing fiction and you aren’t born with that, baby, only just aptitude if you’re lucky.
Ask me there are other kinds of intelligence that are a strong predictors of success in fiction writing. One is self-knowledge. Another is deep compassion for others. Still another is the ability to be observant and objective.
Then there is persistence and practice. None of the predictors are perfect at forecasting success, but it’s nice when they’re all present and accompanied by the kind of story ideas (ones full of inherent conflict) that make fiction look like it’s the result of talent alone.
Hey, Don, thanks for dropping by and for these smart notes.
I’m hopscotching around (“hopscotch” is a verb — Merriam allows anything these days, it’s crazy), and wanted to jump to your comment having gifted poor Jane Friedman with a HUGE one touching on your points.
Briefly, I like “aptitude,” too. And if we differ at all — and I’m not sure we do — I think what I’d add is that in my experience, an aptitude for something usually comes with some amount of zeal for the work it will take to develop it. I think this is why I also like the phrase “inclination” as in “natural inclination” — a given aptitude for something, in my formulation, will be experienced as a kind of inclination to it. Aptitude for writing? Usually means you’re inclined to write. And that should (if I’m right) mean you’ve got the will to work for it, too.
I think some of the most intriguing elements of what is commonly called “talent” — and “aptitude” carries much less baggage — are found in “faculties” for things. My mother was a supervisor of math programs in South Carolina, and she was always fascinated with studies that indicated mathematically gifted people were frequently also good at languages. For them, math worked as a kind of number-language. So they might be faster at catching on to French if they were also good in her math classes.
And in writing, I do think — feel free to disagree — that there’s such a thing as a sort of faculty for written language. I meet people who, to me, make perfect sense as writers because their notes, tweets, comments, conversations all use the language in authoritative, elegant ways that show me they’ve had no trouble “grokking” prepositions and the quaint uses of adverbs and the role rhythm plays in strong writing, often without needing to know the grammatical terminology involved. They just get the written language.
Others I meet in the industry seem far less well, um, endowed in these areas — their writings are full of errors, awkward, strangely distracted…I wonder how they’ve found their way into a profession that centers on linguistic facility. Ever run into such folks? They can be the salt of the Earth, of course, but you just wonder how in the world they’re going to make it in a biz that requires an expressive use of language.
I do agree with you that self-knowledge is a wonderful indicator of good fiction work, compassion as well. I’ve seen these in play in very powerful professional actors I knew, too — often it manifested as a riveting ability to listen. These folks could give you their attention when you talked with them in an almost otherworldly way. You were suddenly the only creature in existence as you talked to them. It’s an amazing gift/aptitude/talent — developed, of course, with a lot of good application and such self-assurance that putting their own needs aside to listen to you is feasible.
Love your line about making “fiction look like it’s the result of talent alone.” Maybe that’s it in the final analysis. As in making it all look easy. We’re right back to Jane above us here in the comments. And Steven Pressfield. You have to “do the work” to make it look “easy” or “talented.” :)
You load 16 tons, and what do you get? :)
-p.
Whether you believe “talent” exists or not, if you don’t work hard, talent means diddly squat. This is true in all aspects of life, but especially in the arts.
Many burgeoning writers seem to believe that, because they’re “talented,” they don’t have to study or revise to improve their work. Their innate genius will somehow shine through the mess of their slapdash first drafts, and critics will fawn, readers will rave, and Pulitzers will fall neatly into waiting laps.
When I first started writing fiction in my teens, I was one of them. Like millions of other kids, I was told I was a “talented writer” because I wrote eloquent in-class essays and my sloppy last-minute papers were a cut above the sloppy last-minute papers of other students. Five or six terrible manuscripts later, I finally figured out that novels are not in-class essays. Fiction requires more than quick thinking and impeccable grammar.
Does “talent” exist? IMO, it doesn’t matter. You must practice and persevere either way. I was a “talented” musician in high school. Can’t play a note now. My sexegenarian mother took up piano a few months ago, and she’s rapidly catching up. The adult brain is always growing, pruning, and adapting.
Tamara, you are the slam!
Hey, Tamara,
Appreciate your comments here, though I disagree.
I’m sure you think you’re seeing what you think you’re seeing, no question there, I honor what you believe you’ve observed.
But I don’t think you’re seeing talent when you see people who think they don’t have to work. As I’ve gone to embarrassing lengths to try to verbalize in my comment back to my friend Jane Friedman, anything that comes without the drive to work, ceaselessly if necessary, is just not talent. It may be a presumption of talent. And I’d guess that’s what you’re seeing in the laggards who tell you they don’t have to work because they’re talented.
Genuinely talented people are driven BY their talents to work on them, develop them, fulfill them with all that effort that many, many of us in our discussion here are saying is necessary (including me).
Those who say they can just rely on talent and not work? They’re not talented. Somehow they’ve taken it into their heads that they have some natural advantage that can keep them from mounting the struggle others face. But I don’t think that’s talent.
Someone in all our comments here has paraphrased an old funny line to make it read: “The harder I work, the more talented I get.”
That’s exactly it, humor and all.
And for my money, the hard work is both ordained by the talent and it’s what manifests the effects of the talent.
I do think it matters. Because we have too many people wriitng, we have too many books. I’d like to see us have fewer of both. But that won’t happen until folks take seriously the fact that trying to get into this publishing thing without the talent (and corresponding hard work) to make it worthwhile, will produce only more mediocre, market-crushing, industry-swamping drivel.
Thanks again for getting into it here, good to have you,
-p.
There are Legends. And there is Porter- the man, the myth, the Legend Killer.
Interesting Porter, your post reminds me of Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers.
Too many times people associate talent with ease, but that is not necessarily true. The slogan- Talent is Crap, is the new or not so new brainwash. People believe Talent is something magical and you don’t have to work hard to obtain it. I’m a fan of the 10,000 hours mojo.
Trying to find you talent later in life can be very discouraging.
3 hours a day
365 days a year
Ten years
10,000 hours
Many people will quit before they even reach a 1/3 of that time, because talent is magical. Using magic should be easy.
What!
This isn’t easy.
There must be no magic here.
No magic = no talent.
It’s quitting time ladies and gentlemen.
So!
Let’s not focus on the word talent. Where is your passion? Where is your desire? No, I’m not talking about what you were told to desire. I’m talking about the desire, the passion you found during self-discovery.
Hmmm- do great artists think they are using their talent while they are learning their remarkable abilities, or do they just work SMART and HARD at what they REALLY WANT to do, and later their admirers call their abilities- Talent.
Hey, Brian,
I will suggest here that decoupling talent from work is the mistake.
Your talent is a lot more important than passion or desire — it’s what, in fact, spurs the 10,000 hours. That’s why I like the term “inclination” as well as “aptitude.” If you have talent for something, you’re inclined to pursue it. With those 10,000 hours of work.
If that means “passion” to you, great, but I find “passion,” “inspiration,” “motivation,” etc. all to be quite useless. All they mean is enthusiasm. And the most enthusiastic bad writer is still a bad writer. In fact, the enthusiastic bad writer is always in your face with the next bad passage he wants you to read.
I’m much more interested in artists whose efforts are founded on inborn capabilities they recognize as the talent on which to build a lifetime of effort and achievement. Their passion will not matter to me, but I wish you joy of it.
Yes, I think great artists do, actually, “think they are using their talent while learning their remarkable abilities.”
And we are better for it.
Thanks.
-p.
Porter, I’ve been word-thirsty since I was a little plug of tobacco, and seemingly forever felt that eerie (and addictive) electricity in my head delivered by a good writer’s words. The shock of word magic galvanized me to write, and to continue to write all these years later, even when the words didn’t quite carry the current under which they’re conceived.
That aptitude, or propensity, or yes, talent carries an element of thrill, even amid some frustration. I know you like tennis—think of when Nadal first found out that he could rocket a searing blast a quarter-inch over the net into an irretrievable corner. Talent. But he couldn’t do it every time, so he had to put in the long hours to refine the blasts, mix them with the soft drops and feints. The deeper thrills are encouraged by the applied effort, and that’s a reciprocating cycle.
Sometimes I get so damn frustrated with not netting that flitting butterfly of bright language, sludging through gluey paragraphs and flaccid plot points. But then there are the times when the paragraphs resist gravity and lift—that makes it worth moving to the next paragraph.
But I’m sure you could be Emily Dickinson if you’d drop this industry (! squared) gadabout stuff and spent a few weeks mixing together some ambiguous pronouns, irregular capitalization and dashes, and maybe some things with feathers. Heck, maybe I’ll try it …
So, Tom, as long as you’ve mentioned “my” Rafa, lol. Get his book. Here it is: http://amzn.to/1pUaMH0 In it, he allowed John Carlin (who did the writing) to get very close indeed to just how strange a creature he is.
Rafa is a man whose talent is on the outside, it’s so profound, so compelling, so completely in control of this personality that there’s no need for discovery or question. It is his skin. Everybody else’s is way deep inside — with Rafa, the talent is the first thing that gets there.
And what I’d suggest you focus on in making a little study of this incredible case of a talent on legs — amazing comeback legs! — is how very strange he is.
I’m trying to say that as long as we have so visible a talent among us (Rafa will be recorded as one of the “purest” athletes in all history because he is virtually nothing BUT his talent), it’s worthwhile to understand that a difficult and daunting component of extraordinary talent is weirdness. Rafa’s weird. For me, he’s divinely weird, but he’s weird. Wonderfully but unavoidably weird.
I think this is what we all have to realize that, even in our lesser (by comparison to him) talents we’re going to find: weirdness. Real talent is quite idiosyncratic. It is disliked by our society right now, in part, because it sets one apart. We — especially our young people — are badly bent on being like each other. We aren’t fond of being different. We dress alike, we talk alike, we try to watch the same entertainment others watch so we can discuss things alike. Our talents run very counter to this and care nothing for being like others.
Look for that stuff in yourself. If you’re having trouble finding the talent that undergirds your interest in writing, it likely means that you have yet to see the strangest part of what you can do.
For all the work you’ll still have to do — and yes, Rafa cannot do and wouldn’t try to do what he does without an amazing, staggering regimen of training and effort — nothing will come of it unless you can put your finger on precisely the odd thing that is your talent. It won’t be general, it will be specific and thus strange.
Your talent, whatever it is, won’t make you like others. It will make you more different. That’s why so many people — including some you see in our comments here at WU — are afraid of it.
-p.
Porter, you present an intriguing premise, to mine those things—no matter their outlier sense—that are distinct in us, and rather than cellar them, present them for public consumption. Yes: if we don’t give breath to the deeper stirrings, we haven’t really breathed, eh?
I love how you present Rafa’s weirdness, both as an engine (or at least a carburetor) of his difference, and probably a necessary component. You remind me of having read Bill Bryson’s “A Short History of Nearly Everything” and seeing that time after time, the distinguished scientists through the ages were loons in their private—and often spilling into their public—lives. Despite, because of, or through their oddity they made staggering contributions to our understanding of the universe.
Of course, Seth Godin recently wrote a book titled “We Are All Weird,” so where does that leave us if our weirdness is what makes us distinct? But he posits that this is a time when people have more opportunities to make individual choices and act on deeper callings.
Anyway, I’m plenty weird, as my pals would attest. But there’s always something held back (I just can’t stand to let commas be on the outside of quotation marks). But you give me the impetus to let the weird beast snort more in my writing. (If it backfires, I’ll just say “Porter told me to do it.”)