What is "Doom Eager"?

Lorrie Moore, from "Better and Sicker"
"Martha Graham speaks of the Icelandic term "doom eager" to denote that ordeal of isolation, restlessness, caughtness and artistic experiences when he or she is sick with an idea. When a writer is doom eager, the writing won't be sludge on the page; it will give readers -- and the writer, of course, is the very first reader -- an experience they've never had before, or perhaps a little and at last the words for an experience they have."

Saturday, June 19, 2010

oh, those writers . . .

Feeling a bit snarky today. In honor of the smug snark that lies in the hearts of every writer now and then, two quotes from two of the greats.

"This is what I find encouraging about the writing trade: They allow mediocre people who are patient and industrious to revise their stupidity, to edit themselves into something like intelligence. They also allow lunatics to seem saner than sane." - Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

"They always think that if you write well you're somehow cheating, you're not being democratic by writing as badly as everybody else does." - Gore Vidal

Raowww! Writers, please, retract your claws.

No comments:

Post a Comment