Topical Guide 208
Mark Dorset
Writing: Personal Motives for and Attitudes Toward
I WOULD NEVER have written this story if Porky White hadn’t insisted on it. … Porky asked me what I was going to work on next.
“I’m not sure,” I said.
“Tell the story of the Young Tars,” he said.
I shuddered and said, “No, thanks. That’s one of those dark, gritty bits at the bottom of my life that I’d just as soon forget. … No thanks.”
“Peter!” he exclaimed. “I really am surprised at you. That’s kind of a narrow, self-centered way of looking at it, isn’t it?”
“Perhaps,” I said, “but remember that this is my personal history—and so forth.”Little Follies, “The Young Tars”
Many of my friends are under the impression that I write these humorous nothings in idle moments when the wearied brain is unable to perform the serious labours of the economist. My own experience is exactly the other way. The writing of solid, instructive stuff fortified by facts and figures is easy enough. There is no trouble in writing a scientific treatise on the folk-lore of Central China, or a statistical enquiry into the declining population of Prince Edward Island. But to write something out of one's own mind, worth reading for its own sake, is an arduous contrivance only to be achieved in fortunate moments, few and far between. Personally, I would sooner have written “Alice in Wonderland” than the whole Encyclopaedia Britannica.
Terror: Preceding Public Readings of One’s Own Work
Every time I face an audience, there is a moment, just before I start to read, when the memory of that night returns, every detail. My palms start to sweat and I look out at the people sitting there, waiting for me to start, and I find myself wishing that I’d had the foresight to lock the doors so that they couldn’t get out.
Little Follies, “The Young Tars”
I think that [Thursday afternoon at Vassar] was the first exploitation of a new and devilish invention—the thing called an Author’s Reading. This witch’s Sabbath took place in a theatre, and began at two in the afternoon. There were nine readers on the list, and I believe I was the only one who was qualified by experience to go at the matter in a sane way. I knew, by my old acquaintanceship with the multiplication table, that nine times ten are ninety, and that consequently the average of time allowed to each of these readers should be restricted to ten minutes. There would be an introducer, and he wouldn’t understand his business—this disastrous fact could be counted upon as a certainty. The introducer would be ignorant, windy, eloquent, and willing to hear himself talk. With nine introductions to make, added to his own opening speech—well, I could not go on with these harrowing calculations; I foresaw that there was trouble on hand.
Listening during the morning workout:
Very well read.
[more to come on Friday, March 4, 2022]
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