I saw a comment on Twitter about writing TALENT that I just have to discuss here because Talent is such a big issue when you're contemplating "becoming" a writer.
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Before we start on that, I have to point out that this week the Vampire anthology I edited (but did not contribute a story to) is just now available on Amazon etc, and it contains stories by 9 authors who would all be labeled "Talented" by most observers. I didn't select these stories because the writers are "Talented," and I doubt any editor would choose stories for an anthology on that basis.
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So this comment I found on Twitter could be paraphrased: "I hope someday someone will recognize my Talent as a writer."
The comment made me very sad, but it reminded me we hadn't discussed Talent here at all. In fact, I'm not sure I've used that word in these writing discussions.
That's because I don't "believe in" Talent as necessary to being a professional artist, actor, writer, wordsmith, dreamspinner, whatever you call what we do in writing Romance stories.
I don't believe a lack of Talent is a barrier to achieving anything, in the Arts, Sciences, or anywhere. In fact, you'll do better without Talent than with it.
When I was in 4th grade or so, there was an English assignment to write a "Tall Story" after we'd studied Paul Bunyan and related stories.
I immediately grasped the concept of the Tall Story. It seemed way beyond the conceptual ability of the rest of the class (in my school, a class was about 50 students and 1 teacher, which I consider an ideal ratio probably because I got used to it young.)
Now this was long before I became steeped in Science Fiction, and may have been the reason my mother introduced me to Science Fiction when I was in 5th grade, but she never said so. I basically invented the entire field of science fiction, whole cloth out of nothing except kid-lit about talking animals etc. I'd never heard of science fiction at that time, and Adult Fantasy didn't exist as a field. So I made it up for a Tall Story.
I don't remember much about that first story I ever wrote. This is pretty much before I actually learned to READ which was in 5th grade after my mother brought me SF novels from the adult library when I was home sick. I do remember I wrote about a guy who lived all alone in a cabin on the side of a craggy, rocky mountain overlooking a huge gorge (I can still see the image in my mind.) I lived at that time in a totally flat town with a couple of small hills in the distance. I'd never seen any place that looked like the setting for this story. I don't remember the character I invented or what he did except it was "impossible" and involved affecting something on the other side of the gorge. Yes, it was about a guy not a gal. I had no idea of plot or story structure. The assignment was to think of a Tall Story - something impossible that nobody else could imagine could be true.
That's exactly what I did. And everyone was astonished (except the rest of the class of course; they were just confused). My teacher and my parents said I was Talented. I didn't have a clue what "Talent" meant but it seemed to me it pleased them, which was a rare experience for me so it made an impression.
I was in 10th grade before I actually committed myself to a lifetime career as a writer of science fiction, do or die trying.
Even by then, I had no clue what Talent was but I had ascertained by experiment and experience that I had NONE other than the ability to imagine the inconceivable as if it were commonplace reality. I just didn't live in the same "world" other people around me lived in, but most people wouldn't call that a Talent. More like a handicap?
Long after I finished college, I did discover what Talent is and that I do have some, just not for art or writing stories or anything I really wanted to do.
In between, I was increasingly puzzled by what people mean by the word Talent, and more and more determined to find out what Talent is, where it comes from, why it exists, and whether or why it matters at all.
The prevailing culture we live in is as obsessed with Talent as I am with the meaning of Words. I love words. I love how they feel in my mouth, especially words in a foreign language. I love languages, especially those that are not cognate with English, my native language.
I love gnawing at the puzzle of how the mind works, how humans use symbols like words, how ideas are generated and communicated with words, binding generations together so that we truly do "stand on the shoulders of giants."
I love ideas, and how they interweave and turn around each other, forming dimensional pictures in the mind. I love the research involved in relating the mind and the brain. I love this world and the people who live in it, bewildered and happy at the same time. Falling in love is what life is all about. The things you do when in a mental/emotional state of that kind of love/joy/happiness/delight succeed no matter the barriers that seem to be in the way, no matter the lack of Talent or Skill. Love does indeed conquer All.
So, after my mother introduced me to science fiction, and I found science fiction fandom (or rather it found me: I wrote a letter to an SF Magazine that was published with my address and my mailbox exploded with letters from fellow-fans) I set out to launch myself into a profession as a writer, and knew I needed a strategy.
At that time, I didn't know that Love Conquers All, I just knew that nothing on earth was going to stop me no matter what.
So I started my research by reading a lot of biographies of writers, famous and otherwise, (and autobiographies, too), which led to reading a lot of history and non-fiction travel books (I read everything on parapsychology and UFOs in the library even though I had to sneak into the stacks and sit there to do it being too young to borrow those adult books). My attitudes towards words and language, and a host of other subjects like drama and philosophy, all painted a picture of a writer. I learned that I had everything needed for a career in writing except Talent (but who cares, I will not be stopped!) One thing all successful writers had in common was Travel -- and I hadn't done much of that.
Talent, I thought, was something I'd have to do without, but Travel -- that lack I could remedy.
I loved to travel. My Dad took us on a vacation every year to interesting places, and I loved riding in the car staring out the window, stopping and meeting people who lived in different places. Eventually I learned to love driving the Interstates. By the time I got out of college, I was able to drive across country (coast to coast) and stop and drive around towns without a map (pre-GPS), though years later I had to rely on maps because they kept building roads. With a map, I could go anywhere.
But I'd never been farther out of this country than across the Mexican border to a border town (places you wouldn't go wander around in by yourself today). So when I got out of college, I got a job in Israel and lived there for a couple of years -- language, travel, adventure became my middle name.
I had determined that I was a science fiction writer -- though I hadn't written anything except a couple of novels when I was in college, and some worldbuilding exercises when I was in 7th-10th grade.
I invented worlds and characters incessantly (another signature habit of the pre-writer). I wrote a lot of long-long (20 page) letters to pen pals in foreign countries. I wrote a lot of letters to other science fiction fans, and articles for fanzines (on paper), and that letter-to-the-editor that was my first print publication. I chained a lot of words together, but never actually did any of the things I've been discussing in these blog posts as the essence of the writing craft until after I was married and raising kids.
I realize now that I was educating myself in the craft by churning out millions of words. When I had decided to commit my life to the profession of writing, my Aunt gave me a subscription to Writer Magazine, and I went to the library and borrowed (systematically) all the previous issues they had in archive (kids weren't supposed to be able to do that - I had to get my Mom's permission.)
I came to understand that I have no talent for writing at all. But I also learned you don't need talent to do a better job at anything than those who have talent. In fact, having no talent for something is a prime credential for doing that thing at the world-class level.
I learned that TALENT is the word we use to refer to something that's born into a person. If you have a talent for something then when you first encounter it, you can do it easily, almost without effort, and with very little actual instruction, and ridiculously few failures.
You've read biographies of child prodigies who can play Mozart by age 8, or whiz through college math courses before they're 12. That's talent.
It's like your computer that comes with programs pre-installed. When you boot it up the first time, you click a few things, type in your name and whatever, and presto the program is running. You didn't have to shop for it, put a disk in the drive, coax it to load the install program, fight with it. It just works.
That's talent -- a set of skills pre-installed. One encounter and presto, the skills are booted and ready to use.
Some kids can play tennis after being shown how to hold a racket. Some can learn Ballet at professional levels after some basic exercises to stretch and strengthen muscles, and then being shown how to move to a rhythm. Something inside goes CLICK and then they can do it, and do it perfectly.
Some are like that with a violin, and after going through 3 local teachers, they get sent to Juliard at age 14 and pushed to Carnegie Hall.
Not me!
Not only did I come with no pre-installed writing/storycraft skills, but the talents I do have are irrelevant to learning those skills.
Here's what I learned about Talent that makes the whole thing clear.
Study of Astrology reveals sets of aspects in a natal chart that manifest as what most people call or recognize as Talent.
Here's the list of Astrology Just for Writers posts I've done on this blog which may mention Talent.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me_30.html (parts 1-9)
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/08/astrology-just-for-writers-part-10.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/11/astrology-just-for-writers-part-11.html
The theory of reincarnation when combined with Astrology indicates that these Talents you see in natal charts are the skills and abilities acquired in prior lives, or maybe bestowed before you're born.
Well, what I learned is that THIS LIFE I'm living now is the "prior" life for my next life, (if I have one.)
What skills and abilities I acquire in this life will appear in my natal chart next time as Talent. (Or maybe not, we'll see.)
So if I work to acquire skills now, I may have them later when I need them. Or maybe, like now, doing those things won't seem interesting to me, and I'll be off acquiring new Talents.
I learned that this concept of what Talent is and where it comes from implies something even more profound. You don't need TALENT!!! It's excess baggage. And life is better if nobody knows you have it.
In Astrology, the 10th House Cusp is your vocation, your sacred calling, what you were born to do. That mathematical point in the sky when you were born may not be involved in any of the Talent aspects in your chart, and thus you don't have a Talent for what you were born to do, but it's still your mission in life to do it. Talents may be missions accomplished in prior lives, but not what this life is about -- or what this life is to prepare you for next time.
You don't have to be talented to accomplish things. In fact, the most successful people aren't talented at what they are successful at. (Madonna comes to mind.) Those who are talented at something (golf, acting, surfboarding, football) have enormous success very early in life (because what they're doing is altogether too easy for them), skyrocket to the top of their profession, then crash and burn in mid-life, rarely living to old age and seeing great-grandchildren through college. (Michael Jackson comes to mind.)
Others, like say George Burns for example, doggedly gain skills and advance in their profession, adding dimensions as they go along, and live to a hundred before they star in the definitive movie of a lifetime (he played God in "Oh, God!"
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076489/combined
He and Gracie Allen had a long, massively successful career always adding skills as they went from medium to medium. Here's another photo from Wikipedia
ttp://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/e/ee/Burns&Allen1938.jpg/220px-Burns&Allen1938.jpg
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