What I Learned From Cows

The last line of my last post (describing my writing style) went like this: not pretty, but in the end, effective.

Though I think I put out good stuff, I also think that’s true. And really, I think it distinguishes me from a lot of other writers. Those that I’m talking about (and you know who they are) have a special way with words. And not only words either – a special gift for imagery, description, dialogue, and narrative. They’re not all great (in fact, most of them aren’t), but they’re pretty. They produce pretty stuff.

I can’t do that. It’s just not my game. I can’t write poetry, and I won’t write the next great novel (I promise you that). Maybe I lack the talent, or maybe I have the wrong background – they do say that all great writers (and even most good ones) have miserable childhoods. It’s the childhood angst (and the writers’ compulsion to explore it) that produces genius works.

I’m not sure about that (I can’t recognize genius most of the time, let alone speculate as to its’ origins). But it would help explain my inability to write poetry (and conversely, my ability to write darn-good copy). I didn’t have a miserable childhood. I wasn’t raised in horrible houses in the slums. I was raised in a steady house in farm-country pastures. I didn’t hustle the streets as a young man to make a living… I tended after cows, and sheet-rocked houses.

I have my share of childhood-related anger, but I don’t have a lot of anguish, and I don’t have a lot of desire to spill it out onto a page. I have a desire (and a limited amount of talent) to produce sporadic emotion-filled works of genius. But most of the time, I just have a desire to do the job, and get it done right.

It’s not literary-genius copy. It’s working-class copy. And frankly (in most cases), I think it’s better.