Writing seems like one of those things that’s so subjective, so idiosyncratic to taste, background, and preference as to elude all categorization. Until you encounter bad writing. Bad writing leaps at you like dirty water splashed by a passing car, like a feral beast enraged with rabies, or like a lonely aunt’s obligatory kiss at the family reunion.
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry when I watch this, but I’m certainly intrigued.
Happy Friday!
A great way to start a Friday. Thanks, Kent. Are you sure this movie is real and not a put-on? Anyway, the poetry in the movie trailer sounds suspiciously like the lyrics to early Paul Simon songs. So some people do grow.
Posted by Joseph Esposito | Mar 4, 2011, 11:44 amhttp://www.netflix.com/Movie/Bad-Writing/70170592
You can put it in your Netflix queue, apparently.
Posted by Kent Anderson | Mar 4, 2011, 1:28 pmWhat a fabulous idea! A documentary about bad writing makes so much more sense than one about good writing. (Boring!) I’ve already reserved it on netflix. I hope the movie lives up to the title. LOL
Jerry
Memory Writers Network
Posted by Jerry Waxler | Mar 5, 2011, 8:48 amOMG, this is SO funny! I love Margaret Atwood’s line “There’s no rule that says you get steadily better.”
Lee Gutkind’s line “You’re not writing for yourself — you are writing for everybody else in the world” reminds me that there are alternate ways of viewing writing.
In memoir and other life writing, you write for YOURSELF first, and then clean it up for the rest of the world. In that case, there is no bad writing.
Viva memoir!
Posted by Sharon Lippincott | Mar 6, 2011, 4:32 pm