Several years ago, the writer Michael Ventura very graciously gave me permission to republish on my website his essay The Talent of the Room. I recommended it to someone yesterday and re-read it again myself, and thought again how marvelous and smart and true it is.
The essay is, in my opinion, a must-read for any writer, although I think it’s an ought-to-read for anyone who wants to undertake something for the long term (going walkabout, entering therapy, moving to a strange city, getting married…). It’s cogent and clear and honest about the fact that talent for a thing isn’t always enough. That kind of talent is about being — a talent for an art, medicine, understanding animals, healing plants, whatever. But Ventura’s focus is the talent of doing — what you have to be able to do in order to express your talent of being (my words, not his). I don’t know what that is for doctors, or lawyers, or architects, or anyone else, although it’s fun to imagine. But I know that Ventura is right — for writers, it’s the talent of the room.
And so I am delighted to find a follow-up of sorts, an extension of the conversation, in this 2007 essay : Creative Writing — a Caution. And this is all true, too, especially the part about being careful of feedback from people who are not better writers than you. If I had a dollar for every hopeful writer I’ve met who is in a writing group where they think they are the best writer… well, it makes me crazy. If you actually want to learn something about your work, why would you want to be in a group where no one’s better at it than you? Why would you not run desperately into the night and try to claw your way into the best group of writers you could find?
If you’re not familiar with Ventura, well, here’s your chance. To call him a writer is a bit like calling Wal-Mart a store — there’s just so much more inside than the word perhaps implies. He’s a novelist, essayist, screenwriter, culture critic, an explorer of the American psyche. If you like these two essays on writing, go read his Letters at 3AM column in the Austin Chronicle. Like these:
(and take note, the website is infernally slow to load, at least today, so you might have to walk away and make coffee or something…)
Why are you still here (grin)? Go read some Michael Ventura!