The Best Writing is Reckless
I wouldn't want to be the family member of a great writer, though I wish I had it in me to write like they did
The fact of the matter is, I’m a coward. Always have been. My halting experience in romance as a teenager and college student stemmed entirely from bolder partners who took the initiative. While my natural tendency is to pick arguments with everyone on every topic on which I have an opinion, a tendency which time and effort have moderated somewhat, I am not nearly so bold when there are real emotional stakes. I will put off difficult conversations well beyond the point where doing so makes things worse—any member of my family will tell you this.
This is a serious liability, not just for navigating the choppy waters of life, but for writing. What I love about the writing of James Baldwin is that, at his very best, it reads like the man has gripped a live wire with both hands and is channeling it into the written word. Baldwin was a master wordsmith; few were his equal in eloquence. But what he really had going for him was a daring that is far more rare a quality in a writer than his skill with language.
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