On bad writing

Beryl Bainbridge, in the course of a sparkling interview by Sarah Kinson, is asked, “Do you find writing easy?” She replies:

It was easier when I was young because I had no standards – I would just write. It was wonderful. I wouldn’t bother whether it was any good. It gets worse the more you know – your standards go up and up and you realise you can’t reach them.

Indeed, I know many aspiring writers around me, and the ones who find it easiest to write, who turn out thousands of words a week, are invariably the worst. Good writing is not just a question of ability, but of sensibility, and the more you immerse yourself in literature, the more likely you are to be aware of your own shortcomings, and the more critical you will be of your own writing. And I’m not sure which way the causality goes between writers reading little and writing crud. Perhaps they write badly because they are not well-read enough to know what is good; or maybe they do not read much because subconsciously they know that reading good writers could threaten their self-delusion about their own abilities.

Of course, you will be quite justified in asking why I am making such pompous statements: after all, I blog more frequently than most other bloggers, so perhaps I write crud as well. That’s entirely possible (though you can’t compare blogging to literature), but then, I have a question to ask of you in return: why are you reading this? Hmm?

Ok now, I’m off to read something, see ya later. [Aside: where’s today’s Mid-Day?]