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.
Anyway I have no regrets about using myself as an example for certain articles I've written and I hope none of them have ever come across as whiny or looking like I'm appealing for sympathy. If they did then my regret would be that I didn't do what I wanted to do with the article, not that I wrote about myself.
What's the hardest part of writing?
You mean aside from grammar, spelling, sentence structure, editing, proofreading, and any of the other technical things that I still struggle with? I'm going to assume so, because otherwise we can stop right here. If my spell check didn't work – I shudder to think (although I'm getting better – my Word documents no longer look like they've been over to Dracula's when a food fight has broken out) …
I think the hardest thing for me is getting the words on the page to be as exciting as they sound in my head. I'll have a thought that sounds great, or really profound, but when I write it out it just doesn't seem that exciting anymore, or say exactly what I wanted it to say. It's not even necessarily because of sentence structure or style problems, although that is sometimes the case, because even when I fix those it still doesn’t ring true to my ear.
It's almost as if I have a tune in my head, but I can't quite remember it well enough to sing it out loud. Or I only know one or two of the words in a verse but I'm trying to write it out anyway. Sometimes it ends up meaning I haven't thought out the idea fully, or that I'm still not quite sure what it is I want to say. But other times it's like the words just don't want to come.
Article comments
1 - Connie Phillips
Congratulations Richard! Thank you for sharing with us via the interview. Nice write-up as usual, Lisa.
2 - Matthew T. Sussman
Uh oh. Back to back Canucks. We really need to plan this better.
3 - SonnyD
Yea, Richard! Great write-up, great interview.
4 - Vikk Simmons
Congratulations. I really enjoyed reading about you, your writing, and your process Keep up the good work.
5 - Richard Marcus
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
6 - Donnie Marler
Richard,
Congratulations! Well deserved!
7 - Pico
You write good stuff. Keep 'um coming, Richard.
-P
8 - Kathy Jones
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!
9 - Al Barger
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.
10 - STM
"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.
11 - Al Barger
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.
12 - STM
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.
13 - Elvira Black
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!
14 - Duck
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?
15 - STM
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.
16 - crushkill
I really like how he loves talking about himself!
17 - DukeDeMondo
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.
18 - alessandro nicolo
Yeah, like the Inuit were going to extract the oil with their kakivak's. No offense. Congrats, Mr. Marcus. Montreal Canadiens - good man.