Blog (and other) writers could learn from Doris Lessing, whose Nobel lecture (alas, she’s not coming to Stockholm) was released a few hours ago:
Writers are often asked, How do you write? With a processor? an electric typewriter? a quill? longhand? But the essential question is, “Have you found a space, that empty space, which should surround you when you write? Into that space, which is like a form of listening, of attention, will come the words, the words your characters will speak, ideas – inspiration. If this writer cannot find this space, then poems and stories may be stillborn. When writers talk to each other, what they ask each other is always to do with this space, this other time. “Have you found it? Are you holding it fast?”
(from nobelprize.org)
I wonder — could it be the case that this particular attentive, listening space which Doris Lessing is talking about is actually destroyed by the hyperlinking-frantic blog medium?
