I was motivated to write today by an online article in The Guardian: “Art of the one-liner: wit and grit for a deadly hit” by Gary Nunn. It was the tagline that caught my eye: “And why the late, great Carrie Fisher deserves to join Oscar Wilde, Groucho Marx and Dorothy Parker as one of the genre’s most brilliant exponents”… the author didn’t expend too many words justifying what I took to be the point of the article. Rather, a great number of words were spent quoting one liners by famous people and then at the end challenging readers to comment or share on their social media with this finale: “What do you think is the world’s best one-liner?” Obviously, the point of the article was to gain readership and viewers more than supporting the premise in the intro tagline.
Thirty one-liners by famous people are quoted, balanced by only one of Fisher’s: “Instant gratification takes too long.” The author used that one in a dating site’s profile. If the point of the article was why Carrie deserves to be considered as “one of the genre’s most brilliant exponents” it fell short of its goal.
This brings consideration for people writing. Professional authors and reporters write to be read, achieve notoriety and earn money. Newspapers, publishers and many websites exist to profit from these writers’ efforts. Others write for more personal reasons. Some write simply for the joy of writing, to put their thoughts down so that they might track what they experience or believe. Writing is one way to make friends and influence people. For those who share these goals, writing for the sheer joy of preserving their thoughts is reward enough.
Acclaim is sought by most who write. It customarily follows well constructed literary choreography. This is one reward for good composition. As the goal it is rather hollow. Writers are a lot like musicians. Musicians can now be considered as much social commentators as entertainers. A writer or a musician must continue engagement with their craft or become stale if they solely rest on their laurels. One home run or a great catch in an entire season is not enough. There will be some strike outs and errors if a career is more than just one game.
Possibly, the Guardian editor may have achieved the organizational objectives. If instead the writer wanted to place Carrie Fisher with the anointed literati of the one-liner, more was needed. Instant gratification takes longer.
This one-liner deserves repetition:
“Being a writer is like having homework every night for the rest of your life” – Lawrence Kasdan
Of course there is always Albert Einstein, “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Just keep writing.
© stevendphilbrick sr+ 01.21.2017 sukidawg
SR+ An IngeniousVortex 