~@ | many people, based on the findings of a 1988 that too many people think they can write a book Road, the 7100-block West Saa- |j 656-2932 or 388-5155 American survey, write poetry or fiction? The —_ without having read one. Reasons for not reading nich behind the Brentwood United answer? 42 million. As far as I know, no such _ range from “don’t have enough time” to — the Church and another in the 7100- Or ice choice of survey has been conducted in this country, butI!’m lamest of all — fear of “being influenced”’. block Hagan. Pr o # ence agama a sure the figures would be just as astounding. Professional writers, who often spend a great deal - As well, two stop signs were Bee Few of these 42 million will ever get published. _of their time reading, get cranky when they hear pushed over by a vehicle at the | — !RADITIONAL So why do they keep writing? The Zen response _ these excuses. corner of Veyaness and White | — MEMORIAL to this would be ““ ‘Why?’ is not a good “Everywhere I go I’m asked if I think the roads. — DIRECT CREMATION aon It’s not “why” we should be asking, ee stifl writers, a ae “We've had good luck in cat- | __ FULL, ut “what’’. annery O’Connor. “My opinion is that they ching people responsible for rip- All right then, what drives so many people to _— don’t stifle enough of them.” Sep: eee iadeputy Folite PRE-ARRANGEMENTS hit the typewriter? Rousseau claimed that writing But Creative Writing Classes can’t be blamed Chief George Lawson. SERVICES So you want to be a writer? You think you know how? “All of us learn to write in the second grade. Most of us go on to greater things,” said Bobby Knight, the basketball coach. ___ We may go on to greater things but still: we have @#ihis urge to keep writing. Hazard a guess at how becomes necessary when speech fails to protect our identity. The written word may be, for some, a weak second-best to lived experience, but for r others it is one of the most powerful ways of transforming experience. Which brings us to sex. To get a woman, all a man has to do is say he’s a writer; it’s an aphrodisiac, according to Saul Bellow, although my experience with the opposite sex has been the opposite. If I say I’m a writer, more often I get, “Could you introduce me to your publisher: I’m working on a book...” Some write for reasons of vanity, from a desire for celebrity or immorality. George Orwell was only being honest when he said his leading motive was the desire to be thought clever, to be talked about by people he’d never met. Writing, for a great number of people, has a therapeutic effect. It’s never a total cure — much happens in life from which there is no recovery — but if you stay drunk on writing, reality will never completely destroy you. You can’t cure grief or death, but you can do your best to oppose it, Creatively. “Why urge everybody to write when the world is so full of writers?” asks Brenda Ueland. Ueland’s experience has taught here that “every Not the why but the what body is talented, original, and has something important to say.” “And if (as I wish) everybody writes and respects and loves writing, then we would have a nation of intelligent, eager, impas- sioned readers.” Would that were so. My experience has been for this universal writing fever. The reasons go back to Grade 2, when we first learn to write. By the time we leave high school most of us can write - well — at least well enough to fill in an Unemployment Insurance application form when one think I haven’t tried yet — writing a book.” It’s as though one only had to try and one would become a writer. Writing is a whole lifetime and a lot of practice. It takes years to write a book. Of course there are abberations like Faulkner who claimed to have knocked off As I Lay Dying in six weeks during time off from a full-time laboring job. And there are other examples, just as there are those who swallow swords, camp on flag-poles, dive off cliffs or have themselves buried alive. But, “Out of a human population of four and a half billion, perhaps twenty people can write a book in a year,” Annie Dillard says. “There is no call to take human extremes as norm.” Still, sometimes it seems as if everyone must be an author. “When I retire 'm going to write a book,”’ the neurosurgeon informs Margaret Atwood at a literary gathering. “When I retire,” Atwood replies, “I’m going to become a brain surgeon.” e Fz] 652-9149 z FREE DAILY DELIVERY To THE Over 200 Peninsula school chil- Over 200 printed at Panorama cess with the large turnout. | Try the newest in ___ Contact Lenses dren were fingerprinted by Block Parent volunteers and auxiliary policemen Saturday at the Panora- ma Leisure Centre. Sidney RCMP Cst. Kim Hors- man said the Family Identification As well, 44 applications were given out to families interested in becoming involved with the Block Parent organization. The event wrapped up Block Parent Week and was one of five Greater Victor- ia Block Parent program sites. TheReview Wednesday, October 31,1990 — Al1 Lawns run over Central Saanich police are look- ing for the culprits responsible for driving a vehicle across several lawns overnight Friday-Saturday. A resident in the 7100-block Hagan Road woke up to find tire marks causing about $50 damage to his lawn. : Similar reports were received from the 6600-block Buena Vista Recently, one driver was charged with mischief and willful damage for ripping up the Stelly’s School fields while another will face charges for ripping up the Often we use writing to get attention or love. we have to — and many get the impression that lawns at Pioneer Park. 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