joanne Weck Author Page

Thursday, May 9, 2013

A NATURAL-BORN TALENT

"I believe talent is like electricity. We don't understand electricity. We use it. You can plug into it and light up a lamp, keep a heart pump going, light a cathedral, or you can electrocute a person with it. Electricity will do all that. It makes no judgment. I think talent is like that. Every person is born with talent." Maya Angelou


 Is it possible to evaluate your own talent or lack of it? Is talent something we are born with, develop, or  something that emanates from a source outside of us which we can access like electricity? Perhaps it is a combination of all three.

 Writing the first draft of a story or novel, I begin to question my ability to write at all. I read something by a writer whose work I love, and wonder why I don't have such talent myself. I struggle through the first draft and put the work aside. At this point I may even think it is a hopeless piece of garbage and I'll never come back to it.

However, there is always that pull. I have to look at what I've written once more. I decide on this second reading, that  it isn't totally hopeless. But I'll have to rework some of the poorly constructed sentences or phrases, add some detail, some metaphor, some more substance. The third time around I begin to feel more confident. By the fourth time, I actually feel a bit proud of what I've accomplished.

"Writing is rewriting," is a phrase I've heard and said many times. Talent is expressed individually by individuals. I may not write as well as  Flannery O'Connor or  Margaret Atwood, or any of a a dozen I could mention, but I can write my own best writing and satisfy myself that there is room for me in the pantheon of writers striving to communicate. WRITE ON!

2 comments:

  1. I think that people are often interested in things they're gifted in. I mean - people usually like doing things which they are good at. However, if you aren't so talented, you can also keep trying and improve. You can be the most gifted person ever, but if you don't develop it, it's useless... :)

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  2. Talent is important but so is persistence.

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