I always end up writing anything in the worst possible way. It's not so much about using big, obscure or technical terms as it is about never coming to the point. After several edits, I can 'skim' 80% of it and bring down to two lines what I first didn't quite say in a few paragraphs.
I want brevity and clarity as a way of writing. How do I nurture this?
>Inb4 'Write/read more' is not enough. Also, not being clear makes me feel it affects how others see me.
*Btw, it's taken me 16 minutes to complete this post, 13 of which I've just been re-writing.
Bumping for interest.
I feel the same way as OP, and I'm not sure I appreciate the English language enough to write with actual elegance yet.
You're spending too much time editing what you had written probably because you care about the aesthetics of your prose.
>>8047721
Why did Orwell hate the Irish so much?
>W.B. Yeats once said that a dog does not praise its fleas, but this is somewhat contradicted by the special status enjoyed in this country by Irish nationalist writers
>ORWELL was a socialist tho!!!
Orwell went to Spain to fight for his most deeply held belief, yes. Unfortunately, that belief wasn’t socialism but the nastiest, most puerile of the tribal hatreds English babies learn in the cradle: anti-Catholicism.
The revolution in Catalonia was unlike any other socialist rebellion before or since. Its fury was reserved for priests, nuns, churches and monasteries, and the anarchists Orwell loved were famous for inventing new ways to kill clerics. That’s what drew Orwell to Catalonia: the chance to help the men who were disemboweling priests in Barcelona and winding their guts around the altars. At last, a chance to smite the bloody Papists, the whore of Rome, Eric Blair’s oldest and dearest hate. Not since Cromwell had an English Papist-baiter had such an opportunity to torment the filthy priests. Naturally, Orwell was on the first ship he could catch. It wasn’t about socialism, it was about the chance to kill “a stinking RC” (Orwell’s description of Wyndham Lewis).
The Celtophobia starts in the very first line of 1984, the famous opening: “It was a cold, bright day in April and the clocks were striking thirteen.” Oh the horror of the continental (Papist) 24-hour clock.
O'Brien is the villain, Oppressing innocent Englishmen.
ORWELL= ORANGEMAN
>>8047721
Sounds like you've figured it out. Just learn to draft, edit, rewrite, and not get attached to the first attempt at writing something. Sometimes it helps me to write out longer sections, and then do a lot of trimming so you're left with the only the essential bits.
>>8047844
But other people I know manage to just sit down, write it down, maybe check it once or twice but surely not spending longer revising than they did writing, and then click send.
I want to know how I can go from this to that. Being 'pro-active' about what bits I should focus on is not enough because even in those situations I go too much into detail into the topic.
>>8047721
1) Do you need to write? No? Then don't. Don't stop editing until there is literally nothing left. Whatever it takes.
2) Stop reading literature.
3) What is in is what comes out. Cultivate a hatred of lies, even the smallest and especially the lazy ones, and mind your own business--every moment of every day. Eventually you will lose interest in bullshit.
4) Saying nothing: even better than writing nothing.
Learn Italian and form a rock band. Helped me.
