Thursday, September 30, 2010

Tasty Spoonful

An admired teacher of mine wrote the following in a letter:
It is extremely difficult to express anything in words with real accuracy.  And the more truthful you are with yourself, the more discerning, and the higher your esthetic and intellectual standards, the more difficult it is.  And when you start out, this is likely to be absolutely shocking, especially if you're accustomed to being able to do things easily, to the satisfaction of other people.  It's really the fun of writing, for me, but it can be very, very frustrating.

Here are efforts to find and make truthful and discerning writing that (...um...hopefully?) adheres to high standards.  Or, in the absence of finding and making that kind of writing, at the very least some manifestations of well-meant, deeply-felt frustration--because when it comes to writing, it seems we are all always just starting out.