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The Bare Vault of Talent

I've an opinion I've been holding in for some days now, but I think it would be best to give it some air. The past few years I've had the pleasure of meeting — if 'meeting' someone online can be called 'meeting' them — several professional writers, folk who make their living at a keyboard. They've all been great people, without exception. When talking about the business, they're honest, which is important when one desires to ply one's living using things as nebulous as words can be.

However — you know there's always an 'however,' there's always an exception — there's one who has grated on me. I'll name no names. I see no need to. The one to whom I refer, their writing is sloppy, imprecise, and stylistically vagrant. This person's online persona, the way they interact with folk, is presumptive and unprofessional, lacking both grace and compassion.

Regarding the writing samples by this person that I have read, both online and in print, if such brute and muddy expression is capable of generating a full-time income, then either the vault of talent is bare or the bank of readers is bankrupt in their perception of good writing. I'm inclined to lay substantial blame at the threshold of the vault of talent: publishers can only withdraw from what they have in reserve, and if the reserve is diluted, polluted, and crass, one cannot fault the readers (unless they simply don't care — and I believe a significant number of them don't, so a small part of the blame lies there, as well).
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Comments

  1. monstro2:43 PM, January 24, 2010

    Toda a gente nos ensina sempre alguma coisa - às vezes da pior maneira, pelas piores razões. O truque é guardar a lição e ignorar o resto. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. g d townshende5:20 PM, January 25, 2010

    Sim, claro. Guardar a lição e ignorar o resto. :D

    ReplyDelete

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