I'll be honest, it's an issue I'm not sure how to address in this particular circumscribed context--but it's one that absolutely interests me.
The issue of what's "good" is of course very fraught. It's really easy for a given editor not to recognize that their idea of what's "good" is bound up in their own cultural expectations. Add to that, of course, that every writer has to discover her own "good," that thing in her own writing that's....honest? When I think about it to myself I use the word "honest" but I'm not sure that's really the best.
And I'm not, at the moment, sure what word to use other than "good" which I know has been used as a sort of...a roadblock? A toll gate? Those aren't working for me...for work that doesn't fit certain cultural expectations. But at the same time, one can be more or less skilled at doing the work one does, and when I say "write better" what I mean is that a writer needs to work to improve her skill and her...the thing I use the word "honesty" for but it's not, not entirely, not the best word for what I mean. In all likelihood, that'll mean certain editors won't consider your work to be "good" but others will.
See, I'm already tangling myself up. Maybe I need to consider writing about what that means, to write better. But basically, yeah, I agree with you, and I oversimplified that bit.
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Date: 2009-12-07 11:36 pm (UTC)The issue of what's "good" is of course very fraught. It's really easy for a given editor not to recognize that their idea of what's "good" is bound up in their own cultural expectations. Add to that, of course, that every writer has to discover her own "good," that thing in her own writing that's....honest? When I think about it to myself I use the word "honest" but I'm not sure that's really the best.
And I'm not, at the moment, sure what word to use other than "good" which I know has been used as a sort of...a roadblock? A toll gate? Those aren't working for me...for work that doesn't fit certain cultural expectations. But at the same time, one can be more or less skilled at doing the work one does, and when I say "write better" what I mean is that a writer needs to work to improve her skill and her...the thing I use the word "honesty" for but it's not, not entirely, not the best word for what I mean. In all likelihood, that'll mean certain editors won't consider your work to be "good" but others will.
See, I'm already tangling myself up. Maybe I need to consider writing about what that means, to write better. But basically, yeah, I agree with you, and I oversimplified that bit.