Wednesday, October 24, 2007

When I was an undergrad, taking writing classes with Maureen and George, there was a rule you had to follow when your piece of the week was being critiqued: you didn't say anything while people were critiquing your stuff, because you weren't going to be there to defend your work when people were sitting in their living rooms reading your published work. (Or agents were sitting in their fancy offices reading your proposal.) It's one of those odd things that I internalized and gotten stuck in my head, like a pop song. I guess I've made it one of my own little guiding principles, in a way. When I write something, I try to remember to put everything in there the reader's going to need when they read the piece. To do otherwise might seem like a break with common sense, but then, there's not much common sense involved in trying to become a published literary writer in this day and age. Sanity checks, when available, aren't lightly passed up.

So when I saw a link to a Douglas Coupland piece in which he, it seemed, engaged in the practice of defending his work, I cringed: don't do it, Doug, I thought; don't do it! (And this is coming from someone who has enjoyed multiple Coupland novels.) Suffice it to say I was pleasantly surprised to find a decently succinct and interesting (and funny) meditation on words, art, and modernity.