Easy reading is damned hard writing.” Nathaniel Hawthorne
“You know, I’ve read your last story, and I ought to have returned it weeks ago. It isn’t right. It’s almost right. It almost works. But not quite. You are too literary. You must not be literary. Suppress all the literature and it will work. Colette to Georges Simenon
Luckily, Georges Simenon took Colette’s advice and went on to become a highly successful popular writer known for his stylistic simplicity, which came to be widely admired as a distinctive style in itself.
In his lively, no-nonsense guide, How to Enjoy Writing: A Book of Aid and Comfort (co-authored by his wife, Janet), the irrepressible Isaac Asimov quotes an essay of his called, “The Mosaic and the Plate Glass.” In it, he describes two kinds of fiction:
“The Mosaic” — “The effort to be colorful and yet to avoid the cliche is difficult… If you succeed, you have written poetically. You have written with style. Everyone admires you — at least, everyone with pretensions to literary taste. And yet, though the phrases may be memorable, though the swing of the sentences may be grand, though the moods and emotions may be effectively evoked — the story may be just a little bit hard to understand. Such writing is like a glorious mosaic built up out of pieces of colored glass….”
“The Plate Glass” — “There’s another kind of writing, too….words and phrases are chosen not for their freshness and novelty, or for their unexpected ability to evoke a mood, but simply for their ability to describe what is going on without themselves getting in the way. The result is that you can see what’s happening with absolute clarity (if the writing is handled well enough). Ideally, you’re not even aware of the writing. Such writing might be compared to plate glass in a window. You can see exactly what’s going on in the street and you’re not aware of the glass…. It may well have been more trouble to insert clarity than to insert poetry. There is a great deal of art to creating something that seems artless.”
The mosaic and the plate glass: Somewhere between these two kinds of writing surely there must be a middle ground — an artful artlessness that’s easy reading. Or do we have to choose between them? What do you think? I’d love to know as we all write on.
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I do not believe it. Somehow, I was just toying with my wishy washy interest in writing when this happened.
I ve been feeling a strong pull towards “letter writing” while suddenly interrupting my own thoughts, I acknowledged a strong desire to encapsulate “the Art of letter writing “with my love of Art itself. Art as a testimony to our many-faceted lives, art as testimony to history, art as imagination, art as a reflection of reality and the predecessor of photography , its chief rival.
Art, the very parent and child of creativity, art an endless love of mine.
to share this moment with you, Karin in an email, I proceed to your blog, where lo and behold: I must believe my own eyes the very title of your latest blog on this very same day : Tuesday Dec, 27th, 2022. these three letter word jumps out of the page:
A R T.
I was so shocked, though upon reflection there was no need to be, I decided to jot down my thoughts to download them in this reply blog.
This is no surprise to me, since one of my favorite quotes: is approximatively, VITA BREVIS EST, ART L O N G A EST.
Now that I have unloaded or downloaded on you, I feel totally READY to READ your article ,,,with so much anticipation of goodies..goodies from you, Karin. As always thank you for the abundance of riches you lavish on us.
Happy New Year, writing writers! WRiITING is like a bottomless waterfall that never tarishes.
( I know rereadng is important. If I do it now, i ll never push the send button… on which I need to click .)
Who knows when other readers will do as you say and just “w r i t e on!” Do IT!
Hi Lise,’
Thank you so much for your lovely and illuminating insights! I so enjoyed the way you traced your thought processes as you contemplated the word “ART” and all its many meanings. Isn’t it wonderful when we can trace the threads of our own unfolding awareness of the man gifts writing gives us! Letter writing, playwrighting, novel writing, storytelling, poetry and prose—all these are in our kingdom of letters. What a realm we rule over!
And many thanks, Lise, always, for your kind words about KWD. t is trul;y an honor to know that I have inspired you!
Write on,
Karin