{"id":524,"date":"2005-09-24T21:50:00","date_gmt":"2005-09-24T21:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=524"},"modified":"2005-09-24T21:50:00","modified_gmt":"2005-09-24T21:50:00","slug":"524","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=524","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

The Writing Life<\/strong><\/p>\n

When I was an undergraduate at “Reed’s Fine College<\/a>,” someone dropped a piece of wisdom on me that ran more or less like this: “First-rate writers lead second-rate lives, while second-rate writers lead first-rate lives.”<\/p>\n

I did not want to hear it at the time. I wanted to be colorful and unique and sexually desirable and all that. Later, I started to think that there might be something to it. Your energy is finite. You can put it into your real work<\/em> (to borrow Gary Snyder’s phrase<\/a>), or you can put it into something else.<\/p>\n

The author of the Outer Life blog has some thoughts on the matter too<\/a>. I think that I will be adding him to the blogroll–I have been reading Outer Life for more than a year now, and it is one of the best-written diarist blogs that I have found.<\/p>\n

Tag: Writing<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Writing Life When I was an undergraduate at “Reed’s Fine College,” someone dropped a piece of wisdom on me that ran more or less like this: “First-rate writers lead second-rate lives, while second-rate writers lead first-rate lives.” I did not want to hear it at the time. I wanted to be colorful and unique […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s6xQTg-524","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":142,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=142","url_meta":{"origin":524,"position":0},"title":"Next, the Associated Press Stylebook\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 13, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Next, the Associated Press Stylebook Wren at Witches' Voice posts an item about a student Pagan group meeting in a Kentucky high school, much to the surprise of administrators. But here is the interesting part: the reporter's last paragraph explaining what Paganism is. In fact, he repeats the Pagan \"party\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3589,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3589","url_meta":{"origin":524,"position":1},"title":"Should Paganized Yule Carols Be Encouraged?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 16, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Evangelical Christians are always swiping slogans and memes from media or popular culture and Christ-fying them. On the Baptist Church signboard that I pass on the way into Pueblo, I have seen \"Got Jesus?\"\u2014an obvious steal from the dairy industry's \"Got milk?\" campaign. Here are more examples of \"Christ-ification.\" (\"Got\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Paganism\"","block_context":{"text":"Paganism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=paganism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":49,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=49","url_meta":{"origin":524,"position":2},"title":"Bone Walker","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 5, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"I have just finished Bone Walker, by the prolific Kathleen O'Neal Gear and W. Michael Gear, last in a series of novels set among the Anasazi people of the Southwest in about the 13th century. It is the third of a series, actually, and in the words of the authors'\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1057,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1057","url_meta":{"origin":524,"position":3},"title":"Polytheism and Punctuation","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 4, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Have you seen the new ads for Gillette's Venus-brand razors? Do you think some copywriter once read some classic of pop-psychological polytheism, such as Goddesses in Everywoman: Powerful Archetypes in Women's Lives?Or perhaps more amazingly, what if someone read Pagan Meditations: The Worlds of Aphrodite, Artemis, and Hestia?Gods below! Polytheistic\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"polytheism\"","block_context":{"text":"polytheism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=polytheism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1830,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1830","url_meta":{"origin":524,"position":4},"title":"Equinoctal Musings","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 27, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"According to the cosmic clock, I must have experienced the fall equinox about the time that I checked into the Trade Winds Motel in Valentine, Nebraska, last Wednesday evening. The next day I would be driving through miles of the Sandhills, the climax prairie ecosystem, homeward bound from the annual\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"festivals\"","block_context":{"text":"festivals","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=festivals"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1285,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1285","url_meta":{"origin":524,"position":5},"title":"Writing English as a First Language","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 15, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Some writing is bland because it does not take chances. Other writing is bland because of poor technique.William Zinsser deals with the second in this talk to international students in the Columbia University journalism school: \"Writing English as a Second Language.\"Actually, writing\u2014as opposed to speaking\u2014is a \"second language.\" That is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"writing\"","block_context":{"text":"writing","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=writing"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}