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."

Monday, December 20, 2010

Why we love bad writing

Why we love bad writing
Laura Miller muses on why so many of us love bad writing in her article posted at salon.com.

I have to admit, as much as I despise "bad writing," Miller has a point in her article: the masses love quick to gobble up, easy to digest, filler plot-heavy novels. I imagine it's much in the same way many of us like fast food, plasticware, and disposable razors.

Last night before calling it quits for the day, I read a few chapters of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. No, I couldn't read it quickly. And, yes, the Russian names are near impossible to sound out in my head; I end up glossing over them. But there is something to reading Tolstoy I can't get from reading Nicholas Sparks or Jodi Picoult. For me, it has to do with the craft of a sentence, the quality of character development, the fine construction of a paragraph. My father used to tell me, You pay for quality. I guess I still believe that.

I'll take a few chapter of Tolstoy over an entire Dan Brown novel any day.
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