Micros: A Third Prose Way, Post-Journalism, Carolina in My Mind, Wofford College

Fine Prose or Trashy Prose: Is There No Third Way?

One of my sons is dipping his toe into the writing waters, starting here at Medium.

This one was pretty good, if you’re into movies. It’s not stuff I would post, but hey, I want to encourage young writers, even if is a poor man’s game.

[I]f you want to write well and live well at the same time, you’d better arrange to inherit money or marry a stockbroker or a rich woman who can operate a typewriter. Flannery O’Connor, Mystery and Manners (Noonday Press), 66.

Flannery was writing about the need to leave behind “the niggardly part of the ego” (Id. 81) when the writer sits down to write. If you’re writing for money, you’re writing for money, not art.

I am fascinated by the massive industry that has sprouted up around would-be writers: Publishing platforms like Medium, Substack, and Ghost. Countless advice columns about how to “make it” as an “online creator.” Everyone is going to make money. Just keep at it (and subscribe to my writer’s coach blog and pay for the publishing platform).

They’re all unabashedly anti-art. The syllogism:

Money = niggardly part of the ego.