Writing

  I have been thinking a lot about writing lately, or more specifically, about my own writing? What and who, were the influences of my writing style, that is of course assuming I have a style? I know some of what people think about my writing, and in my mind, they give far too much credit to my intellect, and not near enough to the intellect from whom I draw my knowledge. You see in my mind, all of my opinions, and the conclusions I come to are not mine? Rather, what I know to be true comes solely from divine intervention. If you were to take whatever abilities you think I have and look at them from the surface, then you will understand why it is that I say what I say about my abilities, and my so called style? I have had none of the training that my predecessors had, nor for that matter my contemporaries. Of these, two come immediately to mind, Eric Metaxas, and Charles Krauthammer, who admittedly sometimes looses me, much like William F Buckly did with his vocabulary. All of this is just a fancy way of saying, that I just barely made it out of High School, graduating at near the bottom of my class with a D average, which I think means dumb? The letter below a D was an F, and that one was definitely for failure! Now my attributing whatever skills I possess to the divine, is not to say that I haven't had influences, I have. In truth, and I suspect that this is true for all writers, that our influences, those of our favorite authors, definitely show up in our work, and part of their styles become our own.
  I'm thinking, that I had better shorten this one, as I have two and a half pages of written script to type. My favorite writer when it comes to the realities of the human nature is Somerset Maugham, who is a great story teller! He has the ability while giving you the facts of the story, to intertwine the scenery in such a subtle way, that the reader stops being only a voyeur, but becomes part of the story! I mean, that in one story, I felt that I was sitting at the cafe table looking out at the setting sun, as it sank into the sea outside Capri Island, at a more relaxed time, a time just before the first World War. For a spiritual story teller, I have read Henri Nouwen's book, Return of the Prodigal, and his insights into the spiritual aspects of humanity are astounding! So moved by Rembrandt's painting of this Prodigal was he, that he went to where the painting actually hung and spent months sitting in front of it, both at day and at night, just making notes about what he saw in the painting, it's colors and lighting, and of course, the people within this work of art. Well, I guess that's it? I am plumb out of room, and so the rest will have to remain unsaid? It was more of a technical aspect though, things like skim reading? I use this method when reading something only to glean facts, like a political story. But the real great books, books that are written in the style of the bible, these stories can not be skimmed or rushed! The really great stories cannot be rushed, but instead must be savored like a fine wine before swallowing.