I found your post especially interesting because you delivered on three fronts-- a book(s) review, insight on the writer(s), and insight on the writing process. It's like getting the triple combo at Wendy's but sooo much better for you. Thanks, HB

I don't know about Hemingway, my favorite is Faulkner. It is my experience that as you plunge deeper, you do better on your own. I would say even that you have no choice but stay on your own and dive, or stay on the surface and play with friends, splashing water.

The problem with journalism, as I fear, might be that you'll get conditioned to think, what does the reader expect, instead of paying respect to what you yoursel are expecting from your writing - to stay true to your singular voice.

I've never attended any workshop, teaching techniques is "murder to dissect" for me. I see the book "trade" an insult to our intelligence and grave ecological polution in every posibble sense.

Journalism can be help and hinder writing, particularly as you say, thinking about audience. But it's great for cleaning prose. I wrote my master's thesis on Faulkner and love Faulkner, but stylistically Hemingway influences my writing more than any other writer; Hemingway's stylistic influence has affected most of the post-World War II generation--Mailer, Vonnegut, DeLillo, etc.--and obviously the short story will have his stamp on literature--Raymond Carver, etc.

The point of this entry is questionable. Too many great writers have been journalists for it to hold water. Todd has said one reason why. Another is experience of life. If I ever find time to write about all I've seen as a reporter, that will be enough material for a dozen books. Journalists get out. People who sit at home navel-gazing don't. Their limitations show in their writing.

Among contemporary writers who have been journalists are Richard Ford, Alice Walker, Rick Moody, Jamaica Kincaid, Francine Prose and Charles Baxter, and this list is just people who come to mind at the moment. There are many more. Enough to support an essay making the exact opposite point.

You can make the point either way, I think, as to whether journalism helps you as a writer. It does force you to speak in plain English, which is a skill worth having; at the same time, it encourages the mediocrity that comes with having to communicate to everyone at the same level. Journalism values a clear, uncomplicated prose style rather than a rich and soaring one. If you work as a journalist but your heroes are Shakespeare and Joyce and Faulkner and Thomas Pynchon, you may find your style divided against itself. On the other hand, if I wanted to know who shot who and why, Joyce isn't the man I'd send for the job.

My response to the journalism versus creative writing question is usually that the creativity is in saying 'why.' Journalism leaves that 'W' out of the five Ws and an H most of the time. So, that is where the skills a writer of fiction develops come in. A reporter can say who shot who. A writer can say why the shooting occcurred beyond John stepped on Jack's big toe. However, some of the time, the reporter and the writer are the same person, and the resulting fiction is the better for it.

Actually, taking an M.A. degree in literature hurt my writing in some ways, or rather, my reading. I read Joyce and Faulkner and Lawrence and Woolf as a scholar, looking for meaning, adding to scholarship and parsing critical theory. It was only after I started reading for enjoyment again that I actually began to pick up reading a novel or story and examining technique. I had to strip off the theory and look at basic things: structure, style, plot, etc., some of things I learned in my Freshman English classes. Oddly enough, though, it was reading a scholar--Harold Bloom--who helped me start reading for enjoyment. I recommend Bloom's general books of criticism such as The Western Canon for that reason.

An anecdote some might find interesting. While working for a law firm, I took a graduate creative writing class at a certain university. The three best writers among all those MFA candidates were myself, another lawyer and a doctor. None of us were pursuing a degree in writing. But, we had natural talent, stories to tell and were teachable. (Aside: The MFA students were not pleased.)

Sounds to me like they should have just dropped what they were doing and followed Mac Diva down the yellow brick road to staggering literary success.

Todd -- I reviewed The Western Canon right at ten years ago and quite enjoyed it. It's one of those books I agreed with and argued with all the way through it -- the margins were full of notes ranging from "YES!" to "Oh Bullshit!" Bloom is a genius but he's full of himself; for someone who continually hammers away at the point that multiculturalism favors race over talent -- which it does -- there are times I got the feeling that his idea of greatness is similarly biased, that the first test of greatness for a book is that it suit his own personal prejudices. Bloom doesn't believe in God, and if a writer believes in God -- like Milton or Dante or Chaucer -- Bloom has to bring them down to his level, and to explain that religion has nothing to do with literary greatness, which is true. If, on the other hand, a writer is an unbeliever -- like Beckett or Joyce or most of the moderns -- Bloom goes the other route: these writers are great because they don't believe in God; they're unhampered by religious belief ... like me, in other words. It's a double-standard that goes on throughout the book. Bloom saves them from the Church of Political Correctness only to claim them for the Church of Bloom.

MacDiva lectures, brags, and condescends about her skill as a writer, using sentences such as:

"Too many great writers have been journalists for it to hold water."

"A writer can say why the shooting occcurred beyond John stepped on Jack's big toe."

and the Convoluted Whopper of the Day:

"So, that is where the skills a writer of fiction develops come in."

--Wonder if she studied IRONY in college?

BTW: One of her most common flaws is the crazy, convoluted sentence. She usually has one or two in every post.

I guess that's bound to happen when you're busy trying to name-drop, refer to your many career manifestations, and browbeat your inferiors --- all in the same sentence.

Oh, and did she mention she's a lawyer yet?

Saying that writers explore the 'why' of the human condition is a "convoluted whopper"? Only to someone who has admitted being mentally ill and contemplating suicide. The minds of the desperate don't work well. Actually, the description captures the essence of what writers do.

The interrelationship of aspects of society rarely gets expressed well in journalism. As someone said, the time focus of newsgathering leaves little room for analysis. The better magazines used to do a good job of filling the gap with longer analytical pieces, but there are fewer of them every year. Newspaper magazines have mainly gone to being either glossies or ad rags. So, there is ample space left for both literary fiction and nonfiction outside of journalism per se. But, as I said above, a disproportionate share of successful writers have been journalists. They usually transition from newspaper or magazine work to increasingly writing books. These people develop the skills sets of both the reporter and the fiction or nonfiction writer. That is fairly easy to do because they overlap.

I would personally take that farther and say I've found some of the things I learned as a law student and lawyer useful as a writer. Most significantly, I gained insight into how society is organized. People do not act in a vacuum. There are all kinds of factors they are not necessarily aware of influencing their actions.

Having worked in journalism, law and writing, I am happy to pass on any knowledge I've obtained. Of course there are always detractors, who, having nothing worthwhile to offer themselves, try to get some attention by assailing the unassailable.

That last comment kind of reminds me of a famous story where a famous actress told Dorothy Parker that she always tries to be kind to her inferiors. "But my dear," Parker replied, "where in the world do you FIND them?"

Rodney--On Bloom: I think Bloom does respect the religious inspiration of writers such as Milton, Dante and Chaucer. He does note, especially with Milton, who he has studied and taught for years, that for most believers Milton's religious beliefs would constitute heresy, that religious believers, attached themselves to Milton. When I studied Milton in grad school, before I had read Bloom, I think I would have sided with Bloom on the question of Milton's beliefs--Paradise Lost is Milton's attempt to either add to, or even perhaps, supplant Scripture. Milton's theodicy, the justification of God to man, makes a case for God that would be hard to accept. Or as the Romantics said, Milton was of the Devil's party. Satan is the strongest character in Paradise Lost.

I also think Bloom is very astute in his analysis of the American Religion. Covering the religion beat in a small Texas town, as I listen to the mostly evangelical preachers speak, I can hear their gnosticism, their sense of knowing that God is with them.

Also, I don't think Bloom is an unbeliever. He repeatedly mentions being a gnostic Jew, interested in the practice of kabbalah.

Not to say I wholeheartedly swallow Bloom; I'm quite certain, as I plod along with Portrait of a Lady, that Bloom has overrated this novel.

"The interrelationship of aspects of society rarely gets expressed well in journalism."

Huh?

That ain't the only thing that ain't well expressed. Try this:

"There are all kinds of factors they are not necessarily aware of influencing their actions."

Convoluted? Moi?

And the rhythmic quality of a three-legged elephant falling down a flight of stairs.

Has she mentioned she's a lawyer and journalist yet?

Shark, you didn't decipher those comments? They mean 1. journalists don't mention the obvious racism behind everything all the time and 2. they don't realize they are racist.

Doh! Justene, thanks for the parsing.

I think I got it.

Many times.

Again.

And again.

And again...

and...

oy...

There are all kinds of factors that I'm not necessarily aware of influencing my aching head, and the interrelationship of aspects of things rarely gets expressed well in my assessments.

A simpleton might decipher those remarks that way.

Mac, based on your past performances, shouldn't that read:

"That way, those remarks a simpleton might decipher." --?

"'That way, those remarks a simpleton might decipher.'"

It's like Mac Yoda!

Journalists not only would have to take criticism from their Editors but also from the readers of the paper. I am sure if someone reads something they do not agree with they will let the paper know in their own harsh manner.

Okay, I'm new at this, just got onto site today. Interesting.