Newsweek columnist Anna Quindlen pens a review of the movie “Freedom Writers,” but also touches upon the value and role of writing in today’s society.
Jan. 22, 2007 issue – The new movie “Freedom Writers” isn’t entirely about the themes the trailers suggest. It isn’t only about gang warfare and racial tensions and tolerance. It isn’t only about the difference one good teacher can make in the life of one messed-up kid. “Freedom Writers” is about the power of writing in the lives of ordinary people.
For a time, the written word’s ability to shape our society was diminished, seemingly supplanted by televisions and telephones (presumably). Now – between e-mail, blogs, message boards and other interactive online technology – is writing gaining ground?
Quindlen thinks so.
How is it, at a time when clarity and strength go begging, that we have moved so far from everyday prose? Social critics might trace this back to the demise of letter writing. The details of housekeeping and child rearing, the rigors of war and work, advice to friends and family: none was slated for publication. They were communications that gave shape to life by describing it for others.
The age of technology has both revived the use of writing and provided ever more reasons for its spiritual solace. E-mails are letters, after all, more lasting than phone calls, even if many of them r 2 cursory 4 u. And the physical isolation they and other arms-length cyber-advances create makes talking to yourself more important than ever. That’s also what writing is: not just a legacy, but therapy.
It’s an interesting (and heartwarming) thought. Certainly, few ignore the fact that the blogs in our corner of the blogging universe are marketing tools, though that hardly explains the range of topics covered or the depth of expression.
A majority of my 20+ years of a copywriter have been spent outside the auspices of advertising agencies, and while I’m clearly suited to working alone, the ability to trot out my latest thinking for peer consumption (and comment) is clearly an attraction.
Copywriter Therapy? I don’t know. But it begs the question: what is blogging’s place in the writing world?
More permanent than a cell phone, but certainly less intimate than handwritten letter, it’s an odd mix, and Quindlen unfortunately ignores some of the new realities facing writers.
For example, you don’t get to comment in a book in realtime, yet online writers enjoy exactly that kind of feedback. Is blogging (electronic publishing on the Internet might be better) the future of the written word?
And is the act of “writing for your life” enhanced by the interactivity and public nature of blogging, or is it deadened?
If you truly had a choice (without economic considerations), where would you write?
Source: Quindlen: Write for Your Life – Newsweek Anna Quindlen – MSNBC.com
[tags]writing, writer, copywriter, anna quindlen, newsweek, freedom writers, blog[/tags]
Perhaps it is akin to acting on stage or for film. Both have common skills but a different skill subset. They also have a different type of audience interaction. Many fine actors enjoy doing both.
The immediacy and interconnectivity of blogging is a buzz. New ideas spark new conversations which are picked up by other blogs, and so on.
However, I also enjoy the project aspect of developing a larger project like a book, or a feature article. So I don’t have a definitive answer on this… just adding more words to the conversation. Ain’t blogging grand?
Yvonne
Yvonne Russell(Quote) (Reply)
Hi Tom,
Quick question: Which issue of Newsweek did the review appear?
When I originally started blogging, it was for the release. I wanted to get thoughts on the page, and since it was the new thing, I gave it a try. Now I feel differently, and use blogging mainly as a marketing tool and to share ideas.
I still do think that blogging, as opposed to other forms of public writing, is much more personal. Bloggers allow readers access to certain topics and ideas that those readers would never had unless they had stumbled upon the writer’s journal.
You ask where would I write? I relish the idea of writing feature-length articles in magazines. That’s my ongoing goal. While it’s great to develop an audience of other bloggers, moving my words beyond the world of cyberspace and into the physical realm of glossies is my intention.
Cathleen(Quote) (Reply)
Thanks to both of you for your comments.
Blogging is different enough that it has become it’s own animal – at least as far as writers go.
If freed from the shackles of sending copy to clients, I’d probably still do my writing with pen and paper.
Word processors add very little to the writing process (but a lot to the commercial process).
But blogging is about connection and commentary – something you don’t get from pen and paper and even magazines.
It’s probably accurate to say that most of us have a preferred form of writing, but we’d still write if we had to use charcoal on stone.
Tom Chandler(Quote) (Reply)