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I want to build more things than I do, write more than I do and play music more than I do. All opinions here are my own, unless they are correct, in which case they're likely stolen.
If you want to, you can e-mail me: jamie at jamietie.com

Excuse me while I go all English major

reagank:

jamiek:

Salinger hasn’t published in more than 40 years. In the few interviews he gave, he said that’s because once you publish something, readers feel that you owe them, but when you write only for yourself, it always belongs to you.

He’s right, of course. Once it’s out there for people to buy, someone else can interpret the work how they want (see Chapman, Mark David). But to steal a Zen koan, is art really art if no one sees it? Is the act of creating art enough?

Writing is a solitary pursuit, something Salinger and Pynchon have taken to the extreme. But Pynchon, at least, has continued to publish. Salinger stood pat on the strength of what he wrote in the span of about a decade. But anyone who writes — really writes — couldn’t think of just stopping.

So what happens to those manuscripts (assuming he didn’t burn them all)? Do his children fight about whether to release them? Does the existence of more Salinger material even have any bearing on his place in the pantheon? Or is he great BECAUSE he never published anything that was uneven?

A theatre professor once told our class that writing for just yourself is like masturbation. It may be fun, but it doesn’t really accomplish anything.

An interesting contention (and one that makes for back to back masturbation references on my Tumblr!), but what if the point of writing is to write for yourself; please yourself alone (to take the metaphor too far)? Zinsser talks about the audience of one, and Vonnegut warned against opening a window and making love to the world while writing. Is Salinger’s refusal to publish (or perhaps even write, who knows?) just taking that to the logical extreme?

Also, what is writing supposed to accomplish? Provoke? Entertain? Enlighten? Pass the time? Prove a point?

Source: jamiek
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