Dear Jordan,
I find your request interesting and almost perplexing. I write an every day blog (since January 2006). I have since then figured out what James Ellroy once told me when I interviewed him that even if you opened a manuscript on your computer and added a comma here or there it was writing. Writing every day, even if you are a lousy one does improve on it. I am perplexed because Medium is indeed a wonderful writing platform. But unfortunately (to me) it is much too full of “how to…” “Ten ways to…”, etc. Writing is writing but Medium seems to have become too didactic. At one time you could place an essay in several publications. Now I don’t think you can. When I could not find a Jorge Luís Borges publication I made one - ditto one for Raymond Chandler. There is one for Latin American Literature but none that I can find for American Literature.
All those journalism schools and those of creative writing seem to graduate lots of people who end up in public relations. Can writing be taught? My friend Les Wiseman, a Vancouver writer known for his rock reviews gave me this advice:
- Write about that which you know. [since then I have modified that to “if you don’t know, ask someone who knows.”
- Research
- Write from the middle, never from the beginning and work your way both ways.
That has served me well. I can only add that one writes for oneself and from the heart.
