Just had one of those deep scary gulps while thinking about writing tonight’s blog, one of those things a writer or other performance artist gets when they ponder their audience, and how much you want them to love you. Funny that no matter how deeply one craves and desires approval from The Beloved, you must act and behave as if you didn’t give a feathery fig for their opinion. If you do, you’re hosed. You become stuck in mid-gulp.

There are two groups of thought about writing, as I see it, the modern version, which constructs writing as self-expression – the unfettered artist’s soul, writing as it sees fit – and the older sort, which considers writing to be communication, a deliberate evocation by the author of another – the reader – in this case you, God bless whoever-you-are. As usual (for some reason when it comes to groups of two) I find myself amongst the latter.

If writing is not communication, one might just as well be a plain ol’ thinker. A book is nothing but a chunk of leavey wood pulp with marks inside until it is opened and perused. To me the reader is more important than the writer. Maybe that’s why I’m so scared.

Eeek!

LWIII

I want to give the audience a hint of a scene. No more than that. Give them too much and they won’t contribute anything themselves. Give them just a suggestion and you get them working with you. That’s what gives the theater meaning: when it becomes a social act.

~ Orson Welles