Blogcritic of the Month, December 2006: Richard Marcus
Published December 05, 2006
Without the Internet or Blogcritics I would never have had any of these opportunities, so for me personally it has advanced my career farther and faster than I really had a right to expect.
You put a great deal of your personal life into your writing — do you find it therapeutic to put some of this stuff down on the page, and do you ever wish you'd held more back?
I haven't really given the whole issue of utilizing my personal life that much thought. My intent when I write about those issues is not to talk about myself but to use myself as an example. It's true that I probably wouldn't have written about the subjects if I didn't have personal experience with them, but I don't think they are topics that anyone would be inclined to just start talking about off the top of their head anyway.
It's also not a decision I reached lightly. It's taken me about eleven or twelve years before I've become comfortable enough, or even able to, write about the sexual abuse I went through as a child. Anyway I don't think I've ever really specifically sat down to write about those circumstances, it's always been in reference to other subject matter.
I've written about things like repressed memory syndrome because I believe that it exists and I believe that I'm proof that it does. I've written about EMDR therapy using myself as an example of how it can be effectively used to let people know that it is a viable means of therapy and if properly utilized can be of great help.
My own experiences are important within the context of those subjects, but to be honest, having to live with stuff like chronic pain is tedious enough without talking about it just for the sake of talking about it. The times when I've written about it have been in an attempt to tell people about the reality of a person who has to live with it, to let people know that pain is an illness and that it needs to be treated like one.
I'm not writing those articles for sympathy or to be inspirational or whatever reasons people have for going on Oprah and telling their life stories. When I think of what I could have written, I've actually said very little about myself on the pages of Blogcritics, or anywhere else publicly.
I'm constantly amazed at how personal and confessional people are on their blogs, and I don't necessarily see that as being equivalent to good writing. There needs to be some other reason for writing about those types of topics than just talking about your life, or it becomes self indulgent
I happen to think I'm pretty blessed: I have a place to live, enough to eat, a wife who loves me, and I get to write every day, something I wouldn't be able to do if I were healthy enough to be working. If ever I even start feeling a little sorry for myself I think of people like Jay Gordon, the co-author of The Eldarn Sequence who died this time last year of ALS, but who was able to keep writing and contributing to the writing of the trilogy until the last month of his life. Now that guy was amazing.
- Blogcritic of the Month, December 2006: Richard Marcus
- Published: December 05, 2006
- Type: Interview
- Section: Culture
- Filed Under: Books: The Writing Life, Culture: Administrative, Culture: Arts, Culture: Media, Sci/Tech: Blogging
- Part of a feature: Blogcritic of the Month
- Writer: Lisa McKay
- Lisa McKay's BC Writer page
- Lisa McKay's personal site
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Uh oh. Back to back Canucks. We really need to plan this better.
Yea, Richard! Great write-up, great interview.
Congratulations. I really enjoyed reading about you, your writing, and your process Keep up the good work.
Holleee
do I really sound like that pompus beady canuck...
Thank you very much Lisa and all you other editor types for the honour. Considering all the folk who write on this site and have quite amazing things to say all the time it's enough to make a fella's head swell.
That is until his next article is put on hold for being sensless gibberish. Oh well that gives me about a day or two to revel in this.
Thank you once again,
cheers
Richard Marcus
Richard,
Congratulations! Well deserved!
The interview was wonderful reading and the collection of articles is inspiring. I especially appreciated your comment, Richard, that what you found most difficult is this:"getting the words on the page to be as exciting as they sound in my head." Really resonated with my experience, and your persistence has paid off, as evidenced in the quality of your work. Congrats!
Why, some of my best friends are Canadians...
Look, all decent patriotic Americans naturally hate beady-eyed Canucks with their heads so full of lies. Brother Marcus, however, does not indulge in the head full of lies part. He will tend to make somewhat different value judgments than me in some political areas (ie he tends to be more "liberal"), but he's highly respectful of facts and strives to seek truth rather than simply win arguments.
So then, as Canadians go, Richard Marcus ain't half bad. He's one of the good ones.
"Look, all decent patriotic Americans naturally hate beady-eyed Canucks."
Never got over having your blurters kicked from here to kingdom and back in the War of 1812, eh?
Time to bloody well forget that, Al, old boy, and move on.
STM, keep monkeying with US Americans, and we'll execute Terence and Philip again.
Canadians are already skating on thin ice as it is. If you read the fine print, the Patriot Act actually outlaws Canada. That whole country is just one Celine Dion album away from being the new Iraq.
Mate, I have often heard Canada described as "America's hat".
However, I have a copy of Mercator's correctional map of the world, which since north and south are nothing more than human inventions and no-one really knows what is top and what is bottom, has Australia and New Zealand at the top of the world.
The US of course is then below the equator, with Canada below that. Using this map, it is no longer America's hat, but America's undies.
I'm sure they prefer being the hat.
Lisa and Richard:
What an incredible piece. Lisa, you somehow encompassed the essence of Richard in your brief intro, including the formidable depth and scope of his work. And Richard, I felt like you were inside my head (or vice versa) as I was reading the interview--and if I read you right, that's one of the essential elements of what every writer strives for. You've got it in spades. Congrats!
How nice of Canada to allow Indigenous peoples use of their own land. How of them.
Seems racist to me when oil companies can go on Indigenous (Crown? Who wers the crown?) Land. Receive hugh tax breaks and I am sure lax environmental controls. Why can these companies sell or do whatever they want?
Ah, it's good to see that land owned by the Government in Canada is still called Crown Land (just like in Australia).
Much of it wasn't used by indenigenous people in the sense that we understand land ownership anyway. Therein lies the problem. A conundrum now being left to others to sort out, just like in the US, with varying degrees of success. Although mostly not.
I really like how he loves talking about himself!
Richard, congratulations Good Sir, and that interview was glorious also. It does the site no end of good to have folks like yourself on here. And what a lovely man, also.
Yeah, like the Inuit were going to extract the oil with their kakivak's. No offense. Congrats, Mr. Marcus. Montreal Canadiens - good man.
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Congratulations Richard! Thank you for sharing with us via the interview. Nice write-up as usual, Lisa.