This group of us ad people used to meet for Sunday booze and lunch quite regularly and missing it, we resumed it again
yesterday. The conversations get very heated or we just shoot the shit, all depending what we have been going through during the previous week. The conversation turned to the subject of what it is to be a
writer yesterday and varied
people (writers ofcourse) gave their opinions to a new blogger and experienced writer who was in search of his soul. (for more, please go to thekillromeoproject.wordpress.com) You see, he writes for money. Not for the passion of writing. The thought of Shakespeare or even Agatha Christie makes him want to barf.
All this time, he thought to be a true writer was to have passion for the craft and a love reading the greats from Shakespeare to Austen and so on. Hopefully everyone else’s mouthsful gave him a newer perspective. The conclusion was that to write, one must first have the talent to do it. And he has it in bucket loads. That makes him a writer. Tha passion is something that he must discover for himself. And in his search, if he never finds it, it still doesn’t mean that he is not a writer, becasue he is. Because he is talented.
On the topic of reading the greats like Will Shakes and John Donne and all the rest before our time. Not everyone’s into that and he doesn’t have to be. At least he is bold enough to admit it unlike so many people I know who love to say they are influenced by or are moved by the greats just to come across as someone they are not. For me Shakespeare & co., taught me more about life and people than I have ever learned anywhere else. Yes, I love the writing too. Loads infact. But as an advertising writer one needs to know people and why they do what they do and why they feel what they feel. If we’re gonna be soap salesmen, we need to do it with honesty so that we can strike a chord in the soul. From a writer’s soul to a consumers. That’s what works for me.
Anyways, I love wiritng. But its not the only thing I wanna do from the moment I wake up. But I love doing it and it is why I changed professions, to do what I love to. But my love for writing doesnot make me a writer. It just makes me want to write and do it better. thekilromoeproject is already a bloody good writer, and passion or no passion, I can only aspire to his talent.