This year Rick Bragg was the speaker at Vive Le Livre. Vive Le Livre is a fundraiser the Huntsville Literary Association puts on for the library. Past speakers have included Carl Hiassen, Scott Turow, and Bill Bryson. On a side note if you ever get the chance to see Carl Hiassen you should definitely go.
Here is the man himself, signing my friend Leslie’s book.
Now like everyone else in the state of Alabama I read All Over But the Shoutin’ when it first came out so I was very excited to get to hear him speak. If you haven’t read the book it’s a memoir that contains some pretty painful scenes from the author’s childhood. It’s also a remarkable funny book. I read it with one shoulder bent towards ‘I can’t believe he said that’ and the other bent towards ‘thank goodness he said that.’
His topic on this night was the craft of writing.
If you follow me on Twitter you know I got a little out of control live tweeting the event.
He started out by talking about the concept of the Muse. You know the Muse, the goddess of inspiration to writers and the like. He said ‘I don’t believe in the concept of the Muse. My muse is called a deadline. It’s called a contract.”
I thought that was so important because I follow so many bloggers that say ‘I’m just not in the mood to write’ – which is fine, it’s their blog after all. However, there are plenty PLENTY o’ times I write when I’m not in the mood too.
I mean, really, I haven’t seen the premieres of Nashville or Modern Family yet! Obviously I have other things to do besides blog. Oh, yeah. And run the house and all.
He spoke of people’s perception of the muse as a creature of the fae, a fairy creature. His muse, he surmised, wouldn’t have been like that. No dainty wings or slight build. He thought his muse would be more like a character out of Lord of the Rings. He writes about some dark things after all.
He basically said that people over romanticize writing. He talked about friends he knows that have to have a specific type writer, a specific location, specific weather etc. before they can write. He didn’t hold this in high regard. I believe his words were ‘that’s writing for rich people.’
He remarked that he doesn’t like to write but he loves to have written. Oh, that’s so true of so many things isn’t it!
Mainly he talked about how much dang work writing was. He stressed that it wasn’t a gift. It was a craft that required a ton of work.
And there’s the rub isn’t it. Anyone can knock out a 20 minute blog a few times a week. But to write, to really write…whew! That’s a whole heck of a lot of work!
Good thing we have people like him that will do it!
