On Crappy Writing: Interview with Self

ME 1:  You have written a lot of crap that looked like anything but crap when you wrote it. How do you feel about that?

ME 2:  It makes me cringe when I see the same sort of crappy writing published on online writing workshops and forums—even more so when one of the moderators jumps in to praise said crappy writing.

ME 1:  How do you define crappy writing, Joan, and who are you to judge?

ME 2:  Thank you for asking. Since I’ve done such a great deal of crappy writing, I feel qualified to define and judge other people's crappy writing. Simply put, crappy writing is self-indulgent writing dressed in cut-out doll clothing. It’s cluttered with metaphors, mostly similes, that don’t work; it blabs on and on about love and trees and shadows and stars; it’s self-important, self-aware, self-enraptured, self-enwrapped, humorless, and preachy. And it rhymes. That’s the worst part. It rhymes.

ME 1:  Wow. You’re not very kind or forgiving. Doesn’t every writer write badly at first?

ME 2:  I’m not certain. Surely, not every new writer goes through insufferably long awkward stages. There must be exceptions. Sylvia Plath, for example, wrote brilliantly at a very young age. So did Maya Angelou.

ME 1:  What is, in your opinion, good writing?

ME 2:  Good writing doesn’t try to sound like good writing. It relates a story, in prose or poetry, and doesn’t worry about being the center of attention. My best writing skips all the fluff and nonsense and just says what it wants to say.

ME 1:  Where is this alleged "good writing" of yours?

ME 2:  In drawers. In hidden blogs. In boxes. But, I’ve gotten rid of almost everything, and now I’m starting again.

ME 1:  Why bother? I mean, why add more crap to the literary garbage heap?

ME 2:  Because I’m not dead yet.

ME 1:  Remember what your erstwhile friend, Mr. Namewithheld, said about your old blogging activities: “Anyone can write a blog.”

ME 2:  Erstwhile, exactly. And he never did write a blog. Which means that I must be anyone, and he isn’t.

ME 1:  You sound a little bitter. Seems like he hit a nerve.

ME 2:  He was too handsome for his own good and had no business being so mean-spirited.

ME 1:  Well, good luck with your project.

ME 2:  Thank you. See you next time.