I've written about it a few times here, but lots of great stuff on of the Chris Jones blog Son of a Bold Venture.
Content ranges from the tactical with writers answering questions on their craft to profound with missives on aspiring writers (or really aspiring anyones) tilting at windmills as they try to realize career goals.
The last two posts at Son of a Bold Venture trafficked more towards windmill tilting with "Lydia Could" about pursuing a Journalism degree in spite of the profession's career arc (much less arcy these days) and then "The Chattanooga Fix" about the small chance of success in writing a book measured against required time and effort.
Rather than leaning towards the doom and gloom, though, me thinks these posts both inspire based on what I take as the directive that... you try, you may or may not succeed, but you try. If you know what you want, great... you try to do that. If you don't know, but have an idea... you try around your idea and see where that takes you. If you have no idea, you scattershot about at different things... and hopefully find something of import to you. Either way... yep, you try.
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If these two most recent Son of a Bold Venture posts were about... duh, trying, there were a few prior to that on a different topic I feel strongly about, words. "A Parting Glass" featured a Charles P. Pierce written eulogy on fellow writer Clif Garboden. It was simply very cool reading about how someone loved what they did, and that thing being the writing of words on a page.
One other Jones missive from the past month that struck me around this topic, but it really wasn't his writing in the post that hit me, but who he wrote about... and then a reader posted blog comment.
"Opening Acts" begins with a reprinting of a J.R. Moehringer magazine piece, which I found of note as Moehringer's memoir The Tender Bar seems a close relative (if not ancestor) of what Son of a Bold Venture is all about. Both on writers, writing, words... all things I feel of import.
In relation to this specific post, though, what I keep thinking about is actually a comment from another reader of it.
Valerie said...
I have let the busy-ness of life crowd out the time and love I once had for reading. As a bureaucrat my own writing is dry and dull (but sometimes artful in its own way). Your posts are drawing me back. I must go out and buy something other than a newspaper to read right away. I need to find time again to slowly savor and enjoy someone else' art of telling a story.
I love it. While I enjoy the blog from Jones in part because it's about writers and writing as an act, it was great to see someone make mention of writing and words as a something to consume.
Whether I'm writing them or simply reading them from someone else... I love words organized on page in a meaningful way (note the heading of this blog) and it's cool to read other people say much the same thing.
