Poet and Squadron Leader Gabriele d’Annunzio (left) about to fly to Vienna, 1918
Tell the truth as far as you are able, regardless of what people think of you.
Resist the herd instinct: no more fashionable victim narratives!
Write as if your life depended on it. If you’re a real writer, it does!
Be precise. We are the guardians of the language. Don’t let it be degraded.
Tackle the sacred cows. Nowadays that means the dogmas of ‘progressivism’.
Don’t proselytise, illuminate. Your readers can make up their own minds.
Use wit, humour, satire. Closed minds hate and fear them.
Be willing to offend. It’s a badge of honour.
Your job is to awaken (not ‘woken’). You are a servant of the spirit.
Be intellectually honest, unlike the hacks who just want success.
Don’t try to repeat your successes. Overcome your limitations.
Forget all the rules! The best writers have always bent or ignored them.
For the purpose of discussion, I'll add a few comments and questions. This post addresses the idea of "real writers" as people who have to write. I certainly support this idea, but in truth, people write for all kinds of reasons. My own is simply the joy of telling a story and the desire for others to immerse themselves and their emotions in it. While my disapproval/approval of certain viewpoints will undoubtedly appear in my writing, it is not my primary goal to persuade or cajole the worldviews of my readers. Those writers often deemed the most important, of course, do both: Tolstoy, Dickens, etc. What do the Writedangerously Authors feel about this issue--must dangerous writers be taking a conscious call to arms?
Secondly, how does one engage in writing dangerously amidst a world where publication is largely tied to genre models, social pressures, and a willingness to sell one's self to the masses via public media (largely social-media)? Full disclosure, I write genre fiction and am not published. I have refused thus far to self-publish or vanity publish simply because I still hope for a wider audience. I will be the first to admit that perhaps my work isn't that good, and that is the reason I've struggled to get an agent. That's fine--my question here is not really about me personally; it's about the general issue. Because I've been querying and investigating advice from the "industry", I can readily say that agents and publishers generally look for what's hot, socially approved (masked as dangerously counter-culture), and resembles other works published in the last three years. In that situation, what are the methods for dangerous writers to reach an audience? Is that even a concern for an artist who must write and is struggling to be the kind of writer described above? Thoughts?
Enjoying the blog!