Too many writers spoil the plot
B. and I are spending part of the weekend at the Blue Metropolis festival. There are famous authors and wannabe writers everywhere you look, and piles and piles of books of fiction, biographies, travelogues, poetry, etc. It’s making me nervous, like when I first walk into a huge bookstore or a library. Part of me is thinking « how stimulating! » but another, darker part of me thinks « there are SO many books and SO many people who want to write, why add one more to the pile? ».
The beginning of an answer may lie in the Stephen King book I’m reading, which is called On Writing. He says:
« A novel like The Grapes of Wrath may fill a new writer with feelings of despair and good old-fashioned jealousy – « I’ll never be able to write anything that good, not if I live to be a thousand » – but such feelings can also serve as a spur, goading the writer to work harder and aim higher. Being swept away by a combination of great story and great writing – of being flattened, in fact – is part of every writer’s necessary formation. You cannot hope to sweep someone else away by the force of your writing until it has been done to you. »
