How Many?

An acquaintance of mine from back home was a much better writer even in his youth than I will ever succeed to be in my senior years. He once told me that he'd only start to publish his stories and essays, "after [he] had written a total quantity more of them than he possessed in years of age." At the time he told me this we were in our mid-twenties. I thought it was a sensible plan then and still do today having not currently met that goal. I looked at this logic as an avenue toward letting a publisher read more than one project at a time while letting a few others review more projects for style and editing. All the while, he or I would know there were still others available as back-ups. Even then, at 24-ish, at least one of those manuscripts had to have been publishable in some reputable literary magazine, public journal or in a book of collected essays for the region or state. He's a year younger than I am and has untold numbers of written material... all of which are in storage at home.

Now at 31, he has never sought out a publisher. He's written about home and little else. He's a brilliant man, writes in a style I've thought only the great writers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries had, and he's with a wonderful family who love him; and no one will get to read his material until HE says they can. In this modern age of computer publishing, blogs like this amateur one and many more professional sites, Robin's stalwart nature is part throwback to the purist independent and part stubborn dissident to the majority.

I can see his point. I was told by my professors, writing cohorts and family members that writing and learning are best honed through a balance of practicing, dedication, inspiration and the possessing the ability to share, in candor, an awareness of both yourself and the matters around you. It's arguable perhaps that to Robin, disclosure of any such personal revelations for far less than they are worth can cheapen them. For if all are capable of reading your works freely and at their leisure, wouldn't that devalue your writings? In many ways, I think this is true; but it is also the great step toward repression of the written word.

Giving the blog-world a chance, I think of this as little different than writing in my journal (which I still keep.) However, since I keep an open journal (something everyone is welcome to read.) I lack the reservations that I suspect run deeply in Robin when it comes to his writing: my ideas are free for use and expansion. Are my words cheapened simply by sharing them freely on the Internet versus writing them on paper? I feel they are equivalent and pertinent to both our audiences and us. So long as we write, we are valued. Robin's wait may take another decade or so, but his character in taking on that wait will always, in my opinion, make him the humbler writer.