A writer's work is harder than you might imagine. It isn't about sitting down and writing what comes into your head. Oh no. It's about ideas and creativity and then structure, structure, structure. Then it's about editing: self-editing and then editing by A. N. Other.
Lizzie knew a theatre person (back in the mists of time) who would start out with the text of a play or some dramatic ideas, then begin to take things out as opposed to adding things in. This process of taking out meant that what was left carried more freight of meaning for the reader because there was 'space' around the signifiers. If everything is spelled out, then there is no room for the piece to breathe through it's floating signifiers and no room for some creative search for meaning
I realise this is all sounding somewhat post-modern. (Should it have the hyphen these days?) Most of the population prefer classical realist texts that will reassure them that life is knowable and predictable. Most TV is like this. However, I'm afraid this view of life is an illusion. We are in an unknowable and unpredictable universe and our sense of reality is false.
Hmmm. How did I get from "A writer's work" to our sense of reality being false? Exciting stuff, eh!
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