Books & Authors : How to read like a real writer

There's always someone willing to tell you what you have to do to be a real writer...

I think most writers will agree that reading a lot is the best thing you can do next to writing a lot. And reading a lot means reading a variety. I try and fit in a classic every year or so, and even though I don't usually love them, I think there's something to be learned from reading something, even if you don't enjoy it on a reader level.

Maybe a strategy might be to study these classics without actually reading them all. Just having an idea here, but! If you listen to an expert delve into why they're so great, breaking it down, going over it, to the point that you know the entire story and his expert take on things... and it turns out that listening to the expert is much more palatable than reading the damn thing... maybe that's a work-around? 

(Even if the expert's a white male.)

I remember my Jr year of AP English in high school, when we teenagers preoccupied with pop music and sex were made to read thigns that... well, damn near all adults wouldn't get anything out of... I certainly didn't... like motherfucking Dickens. Seroiusly, A Tale of Two Cities is not something a sophomore will understand, or do anything other than hate when reading. I'll stop digressing.

Ahem. I used to read the "introductions" for the stuff we were assigned. Those were amazingly useful! Not just in passing the test (that too, though), but in knowing just what the fuck was going on. The stuff we had to read had no context in my mind regarding their time period and/or author's time period, general story-telling, place in literary history, place in any history, nothing! Nothing but a bunch of words I knew but didn't understand... But those explanations were gold. I ended up reading them instead of the actual story most of the time.

Or! I don't plan to ever read, or watch, Pride and Prejudice, but Dan Wells gives a great talk on a "7 point system" in which he uses it, (along with The Matrix, Othello, and The Tell Tale Heart) to illustrate how the "system" works. (youtube it, it's worth a watch.) Pride and Prejudice was the only one on the list I wasn't familiar with, but he did just fine in showing me how the story worked, and I learned plenty from the analysis.

So I'm sure this will be equated to the CliffsNotes solution or whatever, but if you can learn about a book that's impossible to get through, maybe you don't have to endure the drudgery of actually reading it. 

I wouldn't argue that point over all, but...

I bet could say the same thing about you. How well can you do integrals? 

You know, we humans often have this thing where we tend to think the past was better. Why? Who knows. Prosperity and quality of life only increases over history, yet every generation thinks the next is ruining everything. It's a funny thing. 

Wait a second... I'm thinking more about this...

Our education systems have surely failed...

Just for the context of this conversation regarding the "classics" and not for the overall dismal education system we have... I think the opposite is true. At 16, 17, I wasn't ever going to get anything out of all those "classics" they wanted us to consume. At 14, A Tale of Two Cities was the dumbest thing to have me read. At that age, there's just no way. Not one kid in my class (and there were some real smarties and real bookworms) knew what the shit was going on in that Dickens nightmare. And we hated it. Trying to read through it, that shoe cobbler with his... whatever he did... it just made us all hate it, and reading, and books, and literature, and anything related, more than ever. 

But when I read those introductions, when I was being told about these "classics" rather than having to force myself through them, I did get something out of it. I learned things!

Shit, I just realized that was one of the few times the education system, in my experience with it, actually did better than you'd expect!

BW: you, certainly can't.

But here's something fun! You don't need to know any equations regarding black holes or singularities to share a general understanding of what they do in the universe. If I were to get on my high horse and bemoan the failure of the education system, or the science network, or whatever, for not including those formulas in the latest show hosted by Neal deGrasse Tyson... I'd be missing the point. And I think you are too.

Maybe there's another analogy: I work at a place that designs pumps. Even the senior level guys don't know how every pump in the world is created, not even close. Nor do they even know how all the pumps in the past have ever been created, even of the specific special kind that my company specializes in. It doesn't stop them from doing their jobs, and doing them very well.

Or, going with an already-used analogy, looking at the works of Picasso would certainly be of use to painters. But! If a great modern painter had, somehow, some way, never seen a Picasso, it's certainly possible he still become a great painter.

It's also possible that one particular painter may not get anything out of a Picasso. It's also possible that he hates Picasso, finds it dreadful, and finds it a waste of his own time to look and study all the works of Picasso. And maybe he even finds that listening to a Picasso expert talk about what Picasso did a better use of his time.

And then, if we consider Jackson Pollock and his "work," well... 

Or maybe not, and there's one and ONLY one way to learn about writing, and that's to study the classics dammit! To read them and love them and memorize what they did for the world because without them we would have nothing! And therefor you would have nothing! ONLY ONE WAY!!! IF I LOVE THEM THEN YOU MUST LOVE THEM TOO OR YOU ARE WRONG!!!!!

So there's this book called Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Neitzche. Probably most people around here have heard of it. In it there's a parable in which a camel goes out into the desert (if I remember correctly) on his own. Then he becomes a lion. He's met by a dragon named "Thou Shalt." The dragon's scales each have a command on them, "thou shalt" do this, or that, or whatever. The lion must slay this dragon, and he must slay it with "I will." If the lion can slay this dragon, he becomes a child, innocent, new, born and ready to grow.

This is a parable about becoming a man from a boy. The camel, representing a youth so burdened with the demands of society, his parents, his friends, whoever, goes off on his own, like a young man moving through teenagerhood and faced with adulthood. The dragon, all of society's and the world's demands, "thou shalt, thou shalt, thou shalt," representing everyone telling him what he must be and how he must live. His transformation into the lion, to fight and kill the dragon and become free of this tyranny, or to forever bow to it. What great imagery to represent the fight a young man must go through with the expectations of the world, and whether he'll choose his own path, become his own man, or be what everyone else expects him to be. Then, the transformation to a a baby, new and innocent, nothing yet placed upon him. That's what the young man is like if he slays that dragon, unburdened with the "thou shalts." Ready to grow into something anew. 

It's a great story, and I only recently came to understand it, but it left an impression. I really learned a lot and came to see things a little differently, with a little more understanding, after hearing that. Particularly when looking at teenage boys I know, though it applies to middle aged men I know as well. I looked at that story with regard to my own life and experiences. It was truly a great learning experience for me.

Want to hear something crazy though? I learned about it from a guy telling the story, as it related to him and someone asking him about it, on youtube.

Never read the book.

I'm pretty sure him saying this is a defense mechanism called projection. Am I crazy, or does everyone else see it too?

I LOVE opposing opinions! That's when things get interesting! I love hashing it out, back and forth, I say nay, you say yay, let's have at it. You on the other hand...

What I see from you is the most narrow minded viewpoint I may have ever encountered. You don't say anything to the effect of "I disagree because..." thus allowing for an exchange of opposing ideas. You like to make little quips and insults. Instead of taking any time to figure out what someone like me is even saying, you go on a rant. You call me out for petty bullshit, but I don't start these things. You do. Because I dare to express an opinion that dissents from your own. (Or sometimes, don't, but you think I do.) 

When I read something like... 

(If you did happen upon one, I'd wager money they'd be a pretentious, self-important prick who does not respond well to criticism.)

... from you, it has to be the most ironic thing ever said. Self-important prick? From the one who went on a 7-8-whatever hundred word rant because I once pointed out that an exercise your professor taught you had echoes of somethign I liked to do?

Doesn't respond to criticism? My god, have you noticed your own reaction to an idea surfaces that counters your own? The very shadow of criticism sends you spiraling!

And pretentious? From the one who says 

Thuggish: I can’t help you.

..? From the one who once said

I congratulate you, however, on the comfortable bliss you must feel.

..?

From the one who can't help but point out how many degrees she has? HA! 

Go find another Malcolm in the Middle meme.

> You can learn something from anything you read.

Yup. And sometimes the biggest lesson is, Whoa! I ain't never readin' that guy again!

> If you want to be on the same page as the people saying what's essential, you should read what they suggest. If you don't, don't.

Cool. I suggest everybody read this.

(Seriously, everybody should read this).

How The Devil Came Down Division Street

Last Saturday evening there was a great argument in the Polonia Bar.  All
the biggest drunks on Division were there, trying to decide who the biggest
drunk of them was.  Symanski said he was, and Oljec said he was.  Koncel
said he was, and Czechowski said he was.

Then Roman Orlov came in and the argument was decided.  For poor Roman Orlov
had been drunk so long, night and day, that when we remember living men we
almost forget poor Roman; as though he were no longer, really, among the
living at all.

"The devil lives in a double-shot," Roman would explain himself obscurely.
"I've got a great worm inside.  He gnaws and gnaws.  Every night I drown him
and every day he comes gnawing back.  He gnaws and gnaws.  Help me drown the
worm tonight, fellas…help me drown the worm."

So I bought poor Roman a double-shot and asked him, frankly, how it was that
before he was even thirty, he had come to be the biggest drunk on Division
Street.

It took a long time, and many double-shots for him to tell.  But tell it he
did, between curses and sobs.  And I tell it to you now, as closely as I
can; without the sobs, of course.  And of course without any cursing.

When Roman was thirteen, it seems, the Orlovs moved into three stove-heated
rooms in the rear of a lopsided tenement on Noble Street.  Mama O. cooked in
a Division Street restaurant by day and cooked in her own home by night.
Papa O. played an accordion for pennies and drinks in Division Street
taverns by night, and slept all alone, in the lopsided rooms, by day.

There were only two beds in the tiny three-room flat.  So nobody encouraged
Papa O. to come home at all during the nighttime hours.

Because he was the oldest, Roman slept between the twins, who were seven, on
the bed set up in the front room.  Slept there to keep the pair from
fighting by night - as they fought so often by day.  Teresa, who was eleven
and could not learn her lessons as well as some of her classmates, slept
with Mama O., in the tiny windowless back bedroom…under a bleeding heart in
a gilded oval frame.

If Papa O. came home before daylight, as occasionally happened, he crawled
uncomplainingly under Roman and the twin's small bed in the living room.
Slept there until Roman rose and woke the twins for morning Mass, at which
time Papa O. would crawl up into Roman's bed.

If Udo - who was something between a collie and a St. Bernard and as big as
both together - was already curled up under Roman's bed, Papa O. slugged him
with the accordion in friendly reproach, and went on into the back bedroom
to crawl under Mama O.'s bed.  In such an event he slept under the bed all
day.  For he never crawled, even with daylight, into Mama O.'s bed.  Empty
or not.  He did not feel himself worthy to sleep there, even when she was
gone.

It was, as though, having given himself all night to his accordion, he must
remain true to it during the day.

For all manner of strange things went on in Papa O.'s head, as even the
twins had become aware, by the tender age of seven.  Things so strange that
Theresa was made ashamed of them by her classmates, whenever they wanted
somebody to tease.  This, too, was why no one - not even the twins - paid
Papa O. any heed when the family returned from Mass on Sunday forenoon and
he told them that someone had been knocking while they were away.

"Some-body was by door," he insisted.  "I say Hallo, Who there?  Was
no-body.  Who play tricks by Papa?"

"Maybe was Zolewitzes," Mama O. suggested indifferently.  Mama Z. comes,
perhaps to borrow."

That Sunday evening it was cold in all the corners of the home.  Papa O. was
gone to play for pennies and drinks.  Mama O. was frying pierogi on the
stove.  The twins were in bed and Teresa was studying her catechism across
the table from Roman…when somebody knocked twice on the door.

To Roman, it sounded like someone knocking lightly on the clothes-closet
door; but this was a foolish thing to think.  Yet when he opened the hallway
door, only a cold wind came into the room from the long, gaslit passage.

Roman, being only thirteen, stepped back inside the apartment.  He did not
dare look behind the clothes closet door.

All that night a light snow fell.  Roman O. lay wakeful in his bed between
the twins, fancying snow falling on darkened street corners all over the
mysterious earth; on the pointed rooftops of old-world cities, on the
mountain-high waves of the mid-Atlantic, and in the leaning eaves of Nobel
Street.  He was just drifting off to sleep when the knocking came again.
Three times, this time…like a measured warning.

The boy stiffened under the covers, listening with his fear.  Heard the hall
door squeak softly, as though Papa O. were sneaking in.  But Papa O. never
knocked, and Papa O. never sneaked.  Papa O. came home with the accordion
banging against buildings all the way down Noble Street.  Jingling his
pennies proudly, singing off key bravely, mumbling and stumbling and
laughing all the way.  Papa O. never knocked.  Papa O. kicked in the door
happily.  Shouted cheerfully, "Hallo!  What you say, all peoples?  How's
t'ings ever-body?"  Papa O. pulled people from their beds and rattled the
morning pots and pans.  He laughed at nothing and argued with unseen
bartenders, until somebody gave him sausage and eggs and coffee and bread;
walked him to Roman's now empty bed and hung the accordion safely away.

Roman rose from his bed and crept, barefooted, in the long underwear  Mama
O. had sewed on him back in the early fall, to the hallway door.

The whole house slept.  The windows were frosted and a thin line of ice had
edged up under the front window and along the pane.  The family slept.
Roman pushed the door open gently.  Down the hall, a single gas jet
flickered feebly.  Roman looked behind the door, shivering now with more
than cold.  Nothing, no one, nobody at all.  The tenement slept.

Roman returned to bed and prayed quietly all night, until the morning when
he heard Mama O. rise.  He waited until he heard her light the fire in the
big kitchen stove.  Then, dressing with his back to the stove, he told Mama
O. what he had heard.  Mama O. said nothing…

Two mornings later, Papa O. came home without the accordion.  It did not
matter then to Mama O. whether he had sold it or lost it or loaned it; for
she knew it at last for a sign.  She had felt the change coming, she said,
in her blood.  For she had dreamed a dream, all night, of a stranger waiting
in the gaslit hall.  A young man, drunken, leaning against the wall for
support, with blood down the front of his shirt and blood drying on his
hands.  She knew, as all Orlovs knew, that the unhappy dead return.  Return
to warn or comfort, to plead or repent, to gain peace…or to avenge.

That day, standing over steaming kettles, Mama O. went back in her mind to
all those dear to her of earth who had died: the cousin drowned at sea, the
brother returned from the war to die, the mother and father, gone from their
fields before she had married.  And that night, she knocked on Mama
Zolewitz's door.  Mama Z. sat silently…as though she had been expecting Mama
O. for many evenings.

"Landlord doesn't like we tell new tenants too soon," Mama Z. explained even
before being told of the knocking, "so you shouldn't say it, I told.

"It was a young man lived in this place, in your very rooms.  A strong young
man, and good to look at.  But sick, sick from the drink.  A sinner
certainly.  For here he lived with his lady, without being wed, and she
worked and he did not.  That he did not work had little to do with what
happened.  And the drink had little to do.  For it was being unwed that
brought it on, at night, on the New Year.  He returned from the taverns that
night, and beat her 'til her screams were but a whimpering.  Until her
whimpering became nothing.  A strong young man, like a bull, made violent by
the drink.  When the whimpering ceased there was no sound at all.  No sound
until noon, when the police came with shouting.

"What was there to shout about?  I could have told them before they came.
The young man had hanged himself in the clothes closet.  Thus it is that one
sin leads to another.  Both were buried together.  In unsanctified ground,
with no priest near."

Mama O. grew pale.  Her very own clothes closet.

"It is nothing to worry,"  Mama Z. advised her neighbor sagely.  "He often
comes.  But he does not knock to do harm.  He comes only to gain a little of
the peace that good Christian prayer for him may give.  Pray for the young
man, Mama O.  He wishes only peace."

That night after supper the Orlovs gathered in prayer about the front room
stove, and Papa O. prayed also.  For now that the accordion was gone the
taverns must do without him.  When prayer was done, he went off to bed like
a good husband with Mama O.  And the knocking did not come again.

Each night the Orlovs prayed for the poor young man.  And each night Papa O.
went off to bed with Mama O.

Mama O. knew then that the knocking had been a sign of good omen.  She told
this to the priest, and the priest blessed Mama O. for a Christian.  He said
it was the will of God that the Orlovs should redeem the young man through
prayer, and that Papa O. should have a wife instead of an accordion.

Papa O. stayed at home until, for lack of music, he became the best janitor
on Nobel Street.  Mama Z. went to the priest and told of her part in the
miracle of the poor young man.  And the priest blessed Mama Z., also.

When the landlord learned that his house was no longer haunted, he brought
the Orlovs gifts.  And when the rent was late he said nothing.  So the
priest blessed the landlord equally, and in time the Orlovs paid no rent at
all.  But prayed for the landlord instead.

Teresa became the most important person in her class, for it became known
that a miracle had occurred at the Orlov home.  Sister Mary Ursula said the
child looked more and more like a little saint everyday, and no other child
in her room ever had her lessons as well as Teresa, thereafter.

The twins sensed the miracle, and grew up to be fast friends; doing all
things together, even to wearing the same clothes and reading from the same
catechism.  Udo, too, knew that the home was blessed, for he received no
more blows from the accordion.

Only one sad aspect shadowed this great and happy change: poor Roman was
left bedless.  For with Papa O. home every night like a good husband, Teresa
must sleep between the twins.

And thus it came about that the nights of poor Roman Orlov became fitful and
restless; first under the front room bed and then under the backroom bed.
With the springs overhead squeaking half the night as often as not.

The nights of Roman's boyhood were thereafter passed beneath one bed or the
other, with no bed of his own at all.  Until, attaining his young manhood
and his seventeenth year, he took at last to sleeping during the day, in
order to have no need for sleep at night.

And at night, as everyone knows, there is no place to go but the taverns.

And so it was, being abroad with no place to go and the whole night to kill,
that Roman Orlov took his father's place in the taverns.  But he had no
accordion for excuse, only lack of a bed.  He came to think of the dawn,
when the taverns closed and he must go home, as the bitterest hour of the
day.  And this is why he still calls dawn "the bitterest hour".

Is this a drunkard's tale or sober truth? I can only say he told it like the
truth, drinking double-shots all the while.  I only know that no one argues
about who the biggest drunk on Division is if Roman O. is around.

I only know that Mama O. now tells, after many years and Papa O. in his
grave and the twins scattered…that the young man who came to knock was in
truth the devil.  For did she not give him, without knowing what she did, a
good son in return for a worthless husband?

"I'm drowin' the worm t'night," Poor Roman explains, talking to his
double-shot.  "Help me drown the worm tonight, fellas."

Does the devil live in a double-shot?  Is he the one who gnaws deep within?
Or is he the one who knocks, on cold winter nights…with blood drying on his
knuckles, in the gaslit passages of our dreams?

from the short story collection The Neon Wilderness, by Nelson Algren

I think that writing is a thing people can come at different ways. Some people find what they're looking for in the classics. Some find it from reading modern stuff. And almost everyone, honestly, is a different blend of both classics and modern work. 50/50, 90/10, whatever.

My main disagreement, or maybe my feeling that's not so much a disagreement, is that most people seem to feel like their way is the right way, which it probably is. For them. But the right way for one person is not the right way for another.

It's like exercising. Lots of people want to lose weight. But I know those who, if they don't exercise, become skinnier, and their goal is to put on a little weight. The typical advice about exercise doesn't work for them because they are wired differently. 

Ultimately, I think this is something where no one has to be wrong except for the person who says, "This is the only path." Even that person isn't really wrong. They just left off "for me."

To all this, I built a couple bookshelves on Goodreads a few years ago, and they consist of the books that different MFA professors use. I've got Mark Richard, Amy Hempel. And a lot of them have authors that I'd never heard of, or was vaguely aware of without really knowing.

You can find these reading lists too, if you search for someone's name + "syllabus." You'd be surprised. And honestly, you can often email these folks and find out more. 

@Kedzie --- Why that story? And is it not under copyright still? Is this "educational"?

@Thuggish --- I don't think kids need to enjoy everything they read or do in school. But some teachers just say, "You're reading this because it's important," without making any case as to why it's important or what the students are supposed to get from it. At mine, we had required reading and then we had a list of optionals from which we picked however many. I do think it helped ease the pain to have some say in the matter.

@jyh - Why that story?

Because it's awesome.

It's fun, and it's a classic.

And yet it's easy to read (unlike the stuff high school English teachers assign). 

Why this author? Because, for me, (see Helpfulsnowman, I did it!) Nelson Algren was this country's greatest writer, bar none. Of course I'm biased. And yet nobody's ever heard of him, which makes me cry. Whaa!

And because it's Division Street, yo! Division is hipster heaven now. But back when I was a kid it was where we went for extreeeme fun and excitment. Shit always poppin' on Division. I got a soft spot for it.     

Re: Copyright. The story is 75 years old. Not sure about copyright laws, but it's easily found with a Google search. I met Nellie (RIP) once, saw him around lottsa times. We drank in his apartment and argued about crime and punishment (not the book). That was 42 years ago. I think he'd like the fact that I'm still out here pimpin' his work.

If writer B learned a technique from writer A, then I can learn it from reading the work of writer B, can't I?

I think my approach is like Thuggish's - I also have more of a numerical/scietific/engineering background. If I can 'hack' writing, i.e. learn something via a shortcut, then I'm happy. I do not gain enjoyment from the process of learning, but I do love stories. I'm also less interested in literature that is hard work than I was when I was younger and hand more time on my hands.

if you’re the literary Jackson Pollock in your imaginary scenario where Jackson Pollock never went to art school, why does your writing suck so much?

No, no... Jackson Pollock is my example of something that many people hold up as great, when it's... you know, fucking splashes.

Because the common opinion in the US is that reading is painful and more or less worthless.

I couldn't agree more, and I want that attitude reversed, too! I still maintain that part, (almost all for the teenage years) of my appreciation for literature and so on was not from reading it. It was from being taught about it. Reading The Great Gatsby (something I got away with not doing, save for one paragraph that I analyzed for an assignment, and got an A), was something to suffer through.

Or, taking Hamlet, which I did read- and watch- and loved from the get go... I got more appreciation for it still when Mel Gibson was breaking it down, talking about it on some tape or whatever to a group of students. (Apparently he was trying to produce one starring Robert Downy Jr, but that never happened with the rehab and all.)

That’s not everyone’s experience, of course.

Exaaaactly. Classics have their place, that's why they're classics! Most of them (maybe all) didn't hang around for centuries and centuries for any reason other than being good at something, probably many things. But a person's experience with them will vary as much as their writing. And! My tangential point is that forcing kids to read them will almost always make them hate them. Which is a terrible thing to do. It's the goal, not the method, we should be focused on.

I'm honestly kinda saddened. You guys don't even know how to properly talk shit to each other any longer.

Where's Strange Photon when you need him? There's a guy that knew how to stir some shit up.

Thuggish. Problem: You are not successfully sending a message from your brain to my brain via what you commit to the page. That is your problem.  I don't care what route you find, but if you want to write, it is a problem you are going to have to tackle. For every word you put on the page I have to skip one hundred in order to try to hang in there with you for the climax of your thought. One way to approach that problem is to look at the craft of someone who has overcome it, and someone whose voice you enjoy. Your writer voice is murmuring, as if into your hand and I am not able to understand you. Doesn't mean you don't have a voice, it means you have not made it audible to me. I cannot hear you.

If you want me to hear you, you have to speak more clearly.

Speak to the last row in the house.

Thuggish. Your message does not compute because your writing does not carry your message. You make me work too hard to get what you are saying. I get tired and walk away. I  get bored. It's fine if you don't care that I get bored, and you write for yourself, or an audience that is not me. It's a matter of translating from brain to page to brain. You allude to mathematical stuff that means nothing to me, so I have no doubt you are brilliant. I just don't understand what you say about half to 80% of the time. I would enjoy reading a piece of work that you are happy with and want to share. Anything. Poem. story, essay, review. Something with a title and a beginning and middle and end. I would like to see your work, although I do not understand your opinions about anything. That is all..

Well smitheyreynolds, that was actually my point with the math stuff. (That I used to be kind of good at... i don't know about "brilliant.") Soemtimes I pose something with the intent to keep a convo going, and not have it all at once. i also like to imply.

So, to elaborate, since we're further along: it was proposed that the schooling system has failed, presumably, because students have no appreciation for the likes of Dickens or whatever. I make the analogy that the schooling system has failed because most graduates can't perform integrals. Is that really why it's a failure? I don't think so.

Maybe I should be clearer who and what I'm responding to in a forum post... Hmmm, note self...

@bw

i've never really looked at the workshop area of the site. hell, i don't even know where to find it offhand. how much does one post at a time? i might consider it. i don't mind post-a-paragraph-ing.

Yeah, it's been a while since I posted to that thread. I don't often have new stuff that would make any sense because I mostly do short paragraphs, a lot of back and forth dialogue, that kind of thing, that would just be too meaningless. Basically it's the opposite of bw's stuff, much as I like it. Which goes to another of your points- I also like seeing little snippets of totally different styles in that thread. (Side note- what ever happened to Devon..?)

One thing I've noticed- when I go to put a paragraph up, knowing it's going straight to an audience, however small, makes me want to refine it that much more. Even when I know it's not a good paragraph yet. 

Maybe start a new thread, because we're really off topic, and explain what you mean by...

I find I am better able to do that if I will risk being a part of a community, even when it totally pisses me off. This is a tough house. This is a silent, withholding, suspicious, stand behind the door and peek through the crack kind of a place.

and...

Three words, thirty words, 300 words, 3000 words. whatever.

How do you mean? I don't see how you're vulnerable by reading other people's stuff... I think letting people critique your stuff is when you're vulnerable.

Thuggish. Reading other people's stuff doesn't make you vulnerable. The second you start talking to them about their stuff you are as vulnerable as they are. You are vulnerable to pride, judgement, arrogance, and being an overbearing asshole. So. IT is a very gentle business, this critique stuff. Puts you face to face with yourself pretty fast. The generosity of a great critique is an art. IT is a nurturance and a challenge in restraint and generosity and truth. On a bad day it is being harsh and unhelpful and hurting the feelings of another human being. Tp me that is the height of vulnerability.

Thuggish. I suffer when I hurt someone. If I hurt someone, I  hurt myself.

Agreed, Gail. What a beautiful way to put it. When you give critiques, you need patience, tact, and delicacy, which often means overcoming your ego. The most difficult of beasts. It also often involves stepping inside the shoes of someone very different from yourself. You need to let go of control and the things you may well hold dear but are subjective. Flippancy, criticism, and knee-jerk negative responses are easy. Being both open and helpful at once is not easy. Trying to help another writer become a better version of themselves is also a complicated and sometimes difficult thing to do without trying to turn that writer into you or what you like. It's a delicate business, primarily subjective, yet trying very hard to be objective. You're criticizing someone else's baby, the thing that they likely value a great deal about themselves. Identity, hard labor, and self-esteem are tied up in the thing that you're rating numerically and writing up the flaws of. If you don't get off on ripping out someone's gizzards and holding it up in front of their face, it sucks to write a review that comes off harsh and unhelpful. Diplomacy is a must. Sometimes I'll re-read a review I left and just wanna kick myself for the way I ended up wording one thing or another. For me, it's an intellectually and emotionally draining affair. I usually can't do several in one sitting if I want to do them well, and I don't see the point in doing it at all if you're not going to do it well.