July 2006
When I was in high school I spent a lot of time imitating bad writers.
What we studied in English classes was mostly fiction, so I assumed that was the highest form of writing.
Mistake number one.
The stories that seemed to be most admired were ones in which people suffered in complicated ways.
Anything funny or gripping was ipso facto suspect, unless it was old enough to be hard to understand, like Shakespeare or Chaucer.
Mistake number two.
The ideal medium seemed the short story, which I've since learned had quite a brief life, roughly coincident with the peak of magazine publishing.
But since their size made them perfect for use in high school classes, we read a lot of them, which gave us the impression the short story was flourishing.
Mistake number three.
And because they were so short, nothing really had to happen; you could just show a randomly truncated slice of life, and that was considered advanced.
Mistake number four.
The result was that I wrote a lot of stories in which nothing happened except that someone was unhappy in a way that seemed deep.
In high school I imitated bad writers. English class was mostly fiction, so I assumed that was the highest form of writing—mistake one. The admired stories were ones where people suffered in complicated ways—mistake two. The short story seemed ideal, and we read so many we thought it flourishing—mistake three. Being short, nothing had to happen—mistake four. So I wrote stories in which nothing happened except someone being unhappy in a way that seemed deep.
In high school I imitated bad writers, fooled by a stack of false assumptions about what good writing was.
For most of college I was a philosophy major.
I was very impressed by the papers published in philosophy journals.
They were so beautifully typeset, and their tone was just captivating—alternately casual and buffer-overflowingly technical.
A fellow would be walking along a street and suddenly modality qua modality would spring upon him.
I didn't ever quite understand these papers, but I figured I'd get around to that later, when I had time to reread them more closely.
In the meantime I tried my best to imitate them.
This was, I can now see, a doomed undertaking, because they weren't really saying anything.
No philosopher ever refuted another, for example, because no one said anything definite enough to refute.
Needless to say, my imitations didn't say anything either.
In college I was a philosophy major, impressed by the journal papers and trying to imitate them. A doomed undertaking, because they weren't really saying anything. No philosopher ever refuted another, because no one said anything definite enough to refute. My imitations didn't say anything either.
As a philosophy major I tried to imitate journal papers I admired, not seeing they weren't really saying anything.
In grad school I was still wasting time imitating the wrong things.
There was then a fashionable type of program called an expert system, at the core of which was something called an inference engine.
I looked at what these things did and thought "I could write that in a thousand lines of code."
And yet eminent professors were writing books about them, and startups were selling them for a year's salary a copy.
What an opportunity, I thought; these impressive things seem easy to me; I must be pretty sharp.
Wrong.
It was simply a fad.
The books the professors wrote about expert systems are now ignored.
They were not even on a path to anything interesting.
And the customers paying so much for them were largely the same government agencies that paid thousands for screwdrivers and toilet seats.
In grad school there was a fashionable kind of program called an expert system, and I thought, "I could write that in a thousand lines of code." Yet professors wrote books about them and startups sold them for a year's salary. These impressive things seem easy, so I must be sharp. Wrong. It was simply a fad.
In grad school I admired expert systems and took their easiness as proof I was sharp—when really they were just a fad.
How do you avoid copying the wrong things?
Copy only what you genuinely like.
That would have saved me in all three cases.
I didn't enjoy the short stories we had to read in English classes; I didn't learn anything from philosophy papers; I didn't use expert systems myself.
I believed these things were good because they were admired.
How do you avoid copying the wrong things? Copy only what you genuinely like. I believed those things were good because they were admired, not because I enjoyed them.
The fix in all three cases: copy only what you genuinely like, not what you merely believe is good because it's admired.
It can be hard to separate the things you like from the things you're impressed with.
One trick is to ignore presentation.
Whenever I see a painting impressively hung in a museum, I ask myself: how much would I pay for this if I found it at a garage sale, dirty and frameless, and with no idea who painted it?
If you walk around a museum trying this experiment, you'll find you get some truly startling results.
Don't ignore this data point just because it's an outlier.
It's hard to separate what you like from what you're impressed with. One trick is to ignore presentation. Seeing a painting hung in a museum, I ask: how much would I pay for this at a garage sale, dirty and frameless, not knowing who painted it? The results are startling.
To tell what you like from what impresses you, ignore presentation—ask what you'd pay for a painting found dirty and frameless at a garage sale.
Another way to figure out what you like is to look at what you enjoy as guilty pleasures.
Many things people like, especially if they're young and ambitious, they like largely for the feeling of virtue in liking them.
99% of people reading Ulysses are thinking "I'm reading Ulysses" as they do it.
A guilty pleasure is at least a pure one.
What do you read when you don't feel up to being virtuous?
What kind of book do you read and feel sad that there's only half of it left, instead of being impressed that you're half way through?
That's what you really like.
Another way is to look at your guilty pleasures. People, especially when young and ambitious, like things for the feeling of virtue in liking them. 99% of people reading Ulysses are thinking "I'm reading Ulysses" as they do it. A guilty pleasure is at least a pure one. What you read when you don't feel up to being virtuous is what you really like.
Look at your guilty pleasures—a guilty pleasure is a pure one. What you read when you don't feel up to being virtuous is what you really like.
Even when you find genuinely good things to copy, there's another pitfall to be avoided.
Be careful to copy what makes them good, rather than their flaws.
It's easy to be drawn into imitating flaws, because they're easier to see, and of course easier to copy too.
For example, most painters in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries used brownish colors.
They were imitating the great painters of the Renaissance, whose paintings by that time were brown with dirt.
Those paintings have since been cleaned, revealing brilliant colors; their imitators are of course still brown.
Even with good things to copy, copy what makes them good, not their flaws, which are easier to see and to copy. Painters of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries used brownish colors, imitating Renaissance masters whose paintings were by then brown with dirt. Those have since been cleaned, revealing brilliant colors; their imitators are of course still brown.
Even with good models, copy what makes them good, not their flaws—which are easier to see and to imitate.
It was painting, incidentally, that cured me of copying the wrong things.
Halfway through grad school I decided I wanted to try being a painter, and the art world was so manifestly corrupt that it snapped the leash of credulity.
These people made philosophy professors seem as scrupulous as mathematicians.
It was so clearly a choice of doing good work xor being an insider that I was forced to see the distinction.
It's there to some degree in almost every field, but I had till then managed to avoid facing it.
That was one of the most valuable things I learned from painting: you have to figure out for yourself what's good [blocked].
You can't trust authorities.
They'll lie to you on this one.
Painting cured me. The art world was so manifestly corrupt that it snapped the leash of credulity. It was so clearly a choice of doing good work xor being an insider that I was forced to see a distinction I'd till then avoided.
That was one of the most valuable things painting taught me: you have to figure out for yourself what's good [blocked]. You can't trust authorities. They'll lie to you on this one.
Painting cured me, because the art world's corruption made the choice between good work and being an insider impossible to ignore.