Having unbound options could not possibly limit your writing, could it? A vast horizon of words, and that yawning cosmos just past it, ought to point toward broad, rambling vistas of imagination.
But that was not how an author known as Wright saw it (a full ID of whom, by obligation, must wait). His fifty-thousand word book, Gadsby is a work of mad but brilliant concoction. This, his most famous writing, displays an odd tool: an author inflicting upon his own work an arbitrary constriction (and you should know that I am writing this post with a limitation similar to his. So, hang on tightly. It won't last long).
Gadsby is an optimal illustration of an author who willingly loads his daunting task of composition with an additional hardship -- a surprisingly inconspicuous omission of an insurmountably common linguistic thing.
But why?
What could push any author to coax his brain into acrobatic constructions and linguistic gyrations for what amounts to nothing but sport? Why should any right-thinking man or woman plan to handicap his work (just "his"... pronouns do not play along happily in this constraint...so chivalry is forsook) with additional bulk of difficulty?
On its own, isn't ordinary writing profoundly difficult?
As I am now following his narrow law in this, my own small contribution to writing within Wright's dumb limits, I must admit to a giddy stirring within my own noggin that prompts an unnatural amount of urging to my continuation, which, in a way, is sadly missing if I do this much writing without limitations. I can hip you to its thrilling invocation.
At first, it's an impossibility. But, as work limps forward, long swaths of words will jump up naturally, without provocation. A bit along, though, might flourish a puzzling knot that wants a good undoing. This brings a storm of mirth to my dull imagination as I sit on my porch on this sunny and warm Saturday morning, unknotting this small and puzzling linguistic quandary.
But, alas, it is obvious that Wright was a nut.
His was a task to attack his antagonist having not sword nor arrows of my own holy computational tools: my lists of valid words; my trusty synonym lookup; my horrid ally, F7 or my grim savior, ctrl+f.
Still, it is a gift to any author who sits at his blank monitor and finds that his usual pool of thoughts is now just a dusty void without any drop of inspiration, his imagination brutal but fading -- as if a forlorn convict who clanks about noisily in a skull which is his prison.
My trust is for this to supply a disciplinary utility -- not just a whimsical distraction, but a valid drill akin to loading mass into your backpack and running up and down stadium stairs.
I know it was taxing, so I want to thank you profoundly for sticking it out as I labor to finish this bit of absurd scribbling -- which is straining to fulfill its goal, up until this last bit, of totally avoiding our old pal and linguistic building block: the letter "E".
But that was not how an author known as Wright saw it (a full ID of whom, by obligation, must wait). His fifty-thousand word book, Gadsby is a work of mad but brilliant concoction. This, his most famous writing, displays an odd tool: an author inflicting upon his own work an arbitrary constriction (and you should know that I am writing this post with a limitation similar to his. So, hang on tightly. It won't last long).
Gadsby is an optimal illustration of an author who willingly loads his daunting task of composition with an additional hardship -- a surprisingly inconspicuous omission of an insurmountably common linguistic thing.
But why?
What could push any author to coax his brain into acrobatic constructions and linguistic gyrations for what amounts to nothing but sport? Why should any right-thinking man or woman plan to handicap his work (just "his"... pronouns do not play along happily in this constraint...so chivalry is forsook) with additional bulk of difficulty?
On its own, isn't ordinary writing profoundly difficult?
As I am now following his narrow law in this, my own small contribution to writing within Wright's dumb limits, I must admit to a giddy stirring within my own noggin that prompts an unnatural amount of urging to my continuation, which, in a way, is sadly missing if I do this much writing without limitations. I can hip you to its thrilling invocation.
At first, it's an impossibility. But, as work limps forward, long swaths of words will jump up naturally, without provocation. A bit along, though, might flourish a puzzling knot that wants a good undoing. This brings a storm of mirth to my dull imagination as I sit on my porch on this sunny and warm Saturday morning, unknotting this small and puzzling linguistic quandary.
But, alas, it is obvious that Wright was a nut.
His was a task to attack his antagonist having not sword nor arrows of my own holy computational tools: my lists of valid words; my trusty synonym lookup; my horrid ally, F7 or my grim savior, ctrl+f.
Still, it is a gift to any author who sits at his blank monitor and finds that his usual pool of thoughts is now just a dusty void without any drop of inspiration, his imagination brutal but fading -- as if a forlorn convict who clanks about noisily in a skull which is his prison.
My trust is for this to supply a disciplinary utility -- not just a whimsical distraction, but a valid drill akin to loading mass into your backpack and running up and down stadium stairs.
I know it was taxing, so I want to thank you profoundly for sticking it out as I labor to finish this bit of absurd scribbling -- which is straining to fulfill its goal, up until this last bit, of totally avoiding our old pal and linguistic building block: the letter "E".
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