WEALTH OF IDEAS

Often, when I edit any piece of writing, whether it is mine, or, moreso, that of another writer, I find that much of the work that has been neglected is to do with how the writer failed to practise effective sentence control, that deliberate process where nothing is intrinsic, but where much, if not everything, depends on syntactic control, sometimes linguistic risk, that the writer is willing to unfurl. All sentences, especially ones like my introductory one here, can be controlled; the writer has to make choices about how to express ideas: don't let anyone tell you that we are controlled by the sentence, that the sentence is a gift that comes fully formed from some sentence storehouse...we craft these things, we make them work, we knit words, we replace them, we sequence elements of sentences, we pile segment upon segment of lexical and syntactic matter to create prosaic style and semantic sinews. So, on and on, we edit. There are moments when words, phrases, and c...

I just finished reading Orhan Pamuk's essay "The Implied Author" in which he discusses his writing process. Having just reread Coleridge's "Kubla Khan" I liked Pamuk's reference to automatic writing, when the author makes himself available to a story that's raging to be written. Perhap not raging, but that which is within range. He concludes his short piece by arguing that just Wolfang Iser argued that each novel has an implied reader on account of whom it will reveal its meaning, there is also an implied author for each novel. Thus to "writer a novel is to open to [the work's available] desires, winds, and inspirations, and also to the dark recesses of our minds and their moments of mist and stillness". Pamuk's mention of the implied author got me thinkin again about Wolfang Iser's "implied reader" for each work. Then I realized that I have read many books, all of which have revealed their meaning as I read them, a me...