WRITING IS ABOUT WRITING - by Devesh Bhatt

Hello Blaine Little

I recently read your buzz “When writing was about writing”. 

You are aware that we have disagreed on many occasions but I believe that this one deserves a response in the form of a buzz. 

I admire your writing as I find the expressions of inner conflict quite relatable, but again, I completely disagree with your world view and approach to things.

Since you have accused me of writing comments without reading your material a few times in your earlier buzzes, I have opted to quote you before my responses.

 I hope you read this in good spirit and read this in its entirety.

When writing was about writing by Max J Carter (my responses are embedded in italics within the contents of your buzz here)

It makes me want to puke every time I see a new marketing guide to writing something. The out and out narcissism it takes to tell people to write a particular way if they want to succeed goes against everything I stand for as a Shaman and a humanist. 

It's peer pressure conformity that stinks of the author finding themselves superior to the audience with no humility whatsoever. 

It's subvert bullying of the worst kind, they make you think they are helping you by convincing you to conform. 

My Response:

a) As long as markets exist, so does marketing. Consequently marketing guides exist and grow by numbers.

b) A marketing guide to write something simply introduces me to a new way of writing wherein I can produce new content or a marketable avatar of my writing. 

I would merely see the utility. Marketing is an essential activity; I might as well learn it.

c) The narcissism or superior feeling of the author is irrelevant to me. The focus is the utility of the guide, It does not dilute my original expression, unless I am desperate.

d) If I were desperate, I would surrender to my desperation and to the quick fix interpretation of marketing. 

It was possible that I also surrender to your writing, wanting to puke every time I saw a marketing guide to writing something.

e) I could even develop a hateful stereotype of marketing guides, maybe magnify the lens of hate and evaluate writers and guides through this lens of hate.

f) Maybe miss the point altogether and waste precious years of my life. Then blame you for being a bad influence.

g) But I am not desperate. The author of such guides is not my peer, there is no pressure and any conformity is an informed choice.

In fact the author is subject to my acceptance of his/her prescribed guidance. I filter out the useless.

h) Else I fuel my desperation, deep dive into the concept of subvert bullying and unknowingly surrender to it's power.

Back to you:

There was a time when writing was simply about writing. It was about finding your voice and owning your choice of expression. It was about individual expression not fitting not some narcissistic authority obsessed individual's desire for you to do it a certain way. 

If beBee is about showing off who you are as your brand, your writing style should be as individual as you are or you look like a clone of everyone else and then it becomes about who you can make alliances with to have your work shared out to stand out. 

My Response:

Today is a good time for writing because i can simply keep on writing and express with greater freedom:

a) I can be clinical with the clerical office work on my computer with all the ready formats and earn a lot of self-time to write to and for myself. Write, type, record and then write etc etc.. so many ways to do it and keep writing.

b) Additionally I can blog and self-publish, I am not at the mercy of an editor of some publication house. I can agree with the editor and change. It is the most viable option to improve and align with Writing, professionally.

 I can also disagree and do what I want. Incubate ideas in my own style of writing. Never a better time to write. So many options within so many choices.

c) Writing is still simply about writing. Hence It is best to keep writing. Until the creative ideas and original expressions emerge, keep writing. So much content is accessible to find new topics for practice, so many different ways of writing whether presentations, proposals, technical papers, commercial papers , guides, marketing guides to write something etc etc etc

d) So one must chose a place to start, even if it is something mundane like a guide, and keep writing. As one grows into it, the act of writing reveals the inner voice in the most remarkable of ways. In this regard, I found writing to be more consistent than mere contemplation.

e) Information technology has really impacted the social fabric by providing an audience to the anyone’s voice. So many people speaking their minds. The rest who are not, will learn to do so as they get into the habit of expressing, in this case writing.

f) Any expression is not a narcissist authority, unless I am desperate and accept it as one. Moreover, it is worthless to obsess about obsession unless it fuels an expression, such as yours : )

g) I presume that you let off steam on this one just like anyone who puts in a lot of honest hard work and feels outdone by meticulous copycats. Letting off steam too is part of the creative process and you will emerge with something amazing.

h) On the other hand, If this buzz was about awareness, sadly the aftereffects look worrying to me.

i) Food for thought, even distasteful content involves time and effort and holding contempt is disrespectful. Might I add , such contempt looks contrary to the idea of a “Friendly Shaman Humanist” .

j) I also presume that you act tough and unflinching, but on the inside you lose faith in your methods easily and become inconsistent.

Back to you:

It happens and I have been encouraged to engage in the activity of backdoor deals to get more shares and more views of my work here on beBee. 

This kind of activity undermines why we really write. We don't write to get views or shares, we write to express who we are in the now based on a topic. That's what showing who you are as a brand means in blogging, to reveal more of yourself. 

That is about finding your voice, finding your own style. Once you find you style own that shit or you sell yourself short and lose all that could have been. 

My Response:

As stated earlier, writing is simply about writing. Nothing and nobody can undermine it, unless I am desperate.

a) What exactly is a backdoor deal? I would not worry about it if I were simply writing.

b) On the other hand if I wanted visibility and a few of us helped each other out, would it undermine the writing of someone else?

c) You have liked and shared almost all of my buzzes and I offered no deals, but you hardly gave any feedback unless it was about Bebee.

d) Your approach could have made my desperate self, think that you had offered a backdoor deal to me on the sly.

e) Flood my mind with another excuse for self-loathing that I do not know how to blog cause people have come together to scheme and scam against me.

f) Despite disagreements I have liked and shared your buzzes. Did we telepathically make a backdoor deal : )

g) I fail to understand this. Is it not best to JUST KEEP WRITING, SHARE SOME OF IT AND NETWORK. Just like you did with this buzz?

a. As a desperate person if I would become the part of the “we” that you refer to, I would become a very un-trusting, world-blaming kind of a person.

b. This attitude would suffocate and suppress my true voice.

c. With a little persistence, your voice will become my true voice.

d. You see, the methodology of those you oppose has seeped in to your writing. This method is their domain and you are very lucky that they haven’t ripped you apart for it.

e. How about coming back to your method, where they would feel like amateurs.

On a lighter note, you have inspired me to imagine a world of Content bootleggers and blog mafia. It looks weird now but it has potential ; )

Back to you:

Letting someone else tell you how to write and what you should write about is giving them power over you to manipulate you any way they want. 

After making you sure you get the spelling and the grammar right the only rule to writing is to express yourself in a way other people can understand. 

Trying to make it more than that and you are playing with ideas of elitism and judgement of other people who don't do it that way. 

This is why writing guides of all kinds make me want me sick to my stomach as I watch people give their gift of free will and individual expression away in favor the censored version that fits in with someone else's rules.

Blogging to me is about the art of individual expression and anything that is commercial or superficial is worthless shit and that is the law of art. 

My Response:

a) No one can have power over me through writing, unless I am desperate and delusional. Yes, the desire for acceptance, the burden of guilt and the countless fears and doubts can make anyone serve without any question i.e. Surrender control and be manipulated.

b) My desperate version is paranoid about control and the mechanisms of manipulation. It evaluates you with contempt and sees this buzz in the following manner:

a. You have created apprehensions in the mind of a reader for a generic everyday scenario wherein the burden of guilt and countless fears and doubts may surface consistently within me.

b. You have possibly made me more vulnerable to manipulation and I am not sure if you wanted to help me. It is best that I completely isolate myself from the world and return when I am armed with the tools to handle such manipulation.

c. I would certainly use these tools to combat online manipulation and develop firm conviction to tear down all your attempts to manipulate empaths who would easily be duped by you in times of desperation. This is unacceptable.

c) But I am not desperate. So I won’t resort to the desperate approach. Practically speaking:

a. This is a professional network, marketing is a profession and an essential function for networking and business.

b. It is an enabler in decision making.

c. Compared to other platforms the frequency of such guides would be high with the majority working hard to make a living and share the basics with each other in the form of guides.

d. It is good to take a vacation and surrender control from time to time, especially in a professional engagement. I have a desire for acceptance and to avoid serving without question, I have developed a method of engagement and enumerated my terms of contract. To communicate the same i need to learn how to write in a marketable way.

e. Since Bebee is a blog centric personal branding platform, a marketing guide on writing seems very useful. If not, simply hide the buzz. On any other platform, use the user friendly UI and filter in the useful content.

f. You have an excellent way of writing about inner conflict. Given your videos, you are a nice person going through the motions of inner conflicts. I would simply filter in the positive and the useful and ignore your solutions in general. They do not work for me.

g. I found it most useful to write this buzz so that whenever I come across your magnificent creative rants and almost surrender to your influence, I would return to this buzz and conclude that this is one of your Let off Steam moments, I should feel the empathy but ignore the advice completely because the only outcome of such advice is self-damaging paranoia and desperation.

h. It is good to directly refer to those you oppose and be precise about it. General contempt would hurt hard working people. The approach may also fuel the paranoia of many of your readers. How about acknowledging that you were letting off steam, you identify the problem and the philosophical aspect of it, but your guidance needs refinement.

Trust yourself and move on from the superficial, contemplating on it is usually futile.

This is a professional network, i want to secure transactions and you may presume all my activities as commercial. It is a good thing if i am thorough on the commercial aspects, clients and customers will have clarity and won't feel cheated. it does not make me worthless. 

Moreover there are countless examples  of works done with commercial intent that were viewed as groundbreaking works of art  and vice versa. 

Another thing, unrelated to this, you frequently raise the apprehension of “soul-damage”. Please do not fuel the fears and doubts of the reader unnecessarily. Fear suppresses emotion and clouds rationality.

Again, writing is simply about writing. Let the process be the guide and all other guides serve as enablers to gain consistency and variety. I never left music because the industry was too commercial. I left the industry, the music plays on. Similarly, I will keep on writing.