The Lazy Geisha

Not only is Nina, The Lazy Geisha, but she’s a damn smart woman too. Well, I guess Geisha’s are all smart aren’t they? even the lazy ones.:wink:

Anyway, I visit her blog a few times a week. It’s one of the places that makes me think in a very erotic way. And the other day she blogged about her writing. The title of the post is called TINY DANCER, and I finally had to get out of lurkdom and comment that I am a frim beleiver that writers don’t always have to writer “proper” to be good writer. (GO read the post, and the comments and this might make better sense) Anyway, she replied to my comment with this… and I had to share because it hits the nail on the head!

A long time ago, when I was a teenager back in the 80’s (Now this is going back a long ways!), but it was when much of the music I owned was on cassette tapes. I had a cassette single of Billy Idol’s ‘Dancing with Myself’ and on the B-Side of that tape was an audio interview between Billy Idol and MTV’s Martha Quinn. During that interview Idol said something I don’t think I’ll ever forget, and I’m paraphrasing here, but Quinn asked Idol about singers, and Idol said something to the effect of :

“Why do I listen to Mick Jagger? Because he can’t sing and he sounds great. Robert Plant can sing, but do I listen to Robert Plant? No I don’t. I listen to Mick because he can’t sing and he sounds great.”

That just always stuck with me because it taught me that while talent is important, it isn’t everything, you also needs a little chutzpah, passion and personality to make it in this world. Yes, There are far better writers out there, who can churn out enough vocabulary to rival Webster’s Unabridged, but at the end of the day they’ve said absolutely nothing. I’d rather write… and read for that matter, someone who opens their soul and shows me something real with their words. That to me is the mark of a truly great writer, and it’s what I aspire to.

I love it. The heart of what makes a story, song, painting Great.