You'll Never Get Rich...

Came across an odd little piece on-line earlier today* which states with some firmness that in order to become a writer it is first necessary to join the USA military.

*http://www.tor.com/blogs/2012/01/why-every-writer-should-join-the-us-military-part-i#more

I feel I have to differ.

While I have any amount of respect for the US military (except when it’s urinating on corpses, raping their comrades, massacring villagers and blowing up sections of the British army that is) I doubt that service is a necessary adjunct to the literary life. After all, Claire Tomalin’s recent Dickens biography makes no mention of his stint in Fort Baxter and history does not recall any incident of Geoffrey Chaucer being screamed at by a crew-cut training sergeant who wishes him to give him twenty. Maybe that’s the real story behind Shakespeare? Forget the Earl of Oxford, the reason the historical record is so scant is that he was involved in Navy SEAL ops in curiously unspecified middle eastern countries.

It’s a sign of changing times. When I was of an age to serve we were told to join the army and see the world. I suppose I should be pleased that it’s now join the US army and write a book but my heart isn’t really in it.

And while I wish Mr Cole every success in his writing career, I do think he overstates the importance of marching on a writer’s development. I also think he massively overestimates the importance of being unhappy. He reminds me of the story about the fin de siècle author George Gissing who did not have the best of luck in his career. On one occasion HG Wells (I think it was) was extolling the virtues of a young writer he had discovered when Gissing growled ‘Has he starved?’ as if this was a necessary, if regrettable, prerequisite to being an author.

Well call me a cynic, I think they’re both wrong. I don’t know an easy way to become a writer save actually writing things and getting them published, but what do I know? I never served.

All Hail a Glover's Son

Another 23^rd of April, another Shakespeare’s birth/deathday celebration. Another piece about whether Shakespeare did actually write the plays or whether someone else did and if so, does it actually matter(http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/apr/23/care-wrote-william-shakespeare-plays).

It does, but only because of the argument put forward by those who cannot bear the idea that a glover’s son from Stratford could be England’s greatest writer. Once you strip away the glitter of their argument it comes down to simple snobbery and as such needs to be resisted rather than ignored. The idea that a provincial with a reasonable but not amazing education could achieve what Shakespeare achieved has to be celebrated, not furiously denied. Interestingly, so angry are the Shakespeare sceptics at the effrontery of the man’s persistent refusal to be well-born, they rarely even use his name, preferring to refer to him as ‘the glover’s son’ or ‘a Stratford actor’. They even call themselves anti-Stratfordians, which does rather reveal the wellspring of their denial. Refute and then ignore is my humble advice. You can find the facts you need in Bill Bryson’s excellent biography, Shakespeare, though doubtless the sceptics would refuse to accept his arguments because he’s American or too popular or whatever. As Macbeth says:

…it is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

On a better note, once again here’s the reason why we should celebrate this day with, as it is also St George’s Day, John Gielgud as John of Gaunt in Richard II stating why he rather likes England but is a bit upset about recent events. He shouldn’t worry, it will all turn out for the best a couple of plays down the line, well, for England anyway, not so much for France:

Have fun.