Honestly London
Part II
The fact about modern authors is that they are different than Jack London on several key points:
Writers are created differently today. American public school students read far more authors writing post-Hemingway than any other kind of writer, heavy on minority and women writers.
Reading authors that have been ignored in past centuries is a noble pursuit and raises interesting and unique conglomerations of ideas, but the unity of the old academia, which made for educated discussion among those initiated into structured education, is split by the sparser material read in common by those persons called scholars than in previous eras.
Today, many writers feel and give ideas without much internal mediation or processing, such as editing, spelling, or fact checks. Instead, the audience is expected to overlook mechanical errors; to "like", share, or comment; and to generally suggest how a writer should write and think. The modern writer on social media captures views because of explosive taglines addressing controversial issues, but whether or not their audience empathizes with them, rather than agrees with them, can only be known by the audience in a place often apart from words.
Writers today try too hard to create their style without nailing the basics first. Every person with dreams of writing and fame will often labor at carving their own, distinct style, believing that if they do not sound unique they will not be heard.
On the contrary, Jack London and other authors create their best work when they do not try too hard, but are the most honest, and often vulnerable, versions of themselves.
Authors write within the bounds of human experience and imagination, which stems from the experiences of self and others, Subjects written about have in all probability already been explored by some other thinker at some point in time, but every observer view different details and emphasizes with different stresses, which creates a unique mixture, which in turn becomes a new experience. The old becomes new once more, for more people to absorb into their own collection of experiences.
Perhaps it is time to care less about being totally unique and more about what truth each observer can witness, note, and explore.
Jack London writes as only Jack London can, because of his life experiences --which sparked many of his ideas -- his education, his steadfast approach to being totally honest and true to himself, and his respect for the long tradition of writing in exploration of truth and human experience.
Want more? Subscribe to butterflygoesfree.blogspot.com in the box on the right sidebar, and check out previous Craft Wednesday posts, such as as ones on editing, perspective, tradition and truth.
Read the first half of this essay here.
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