Understanding your limitations as a writer
Prdaily :By Evan Peterson | Posted: April 12, 2013
On most Fridays, Evan Peterson rounds up five stories from across the Web that scribes of all stripes should check out.
在大多數週五，埃文·彼得森集中橫越來自Web的五個故事應該可檢查出刻劃所有的類型。
You can't do everything.
你不能做所有的事。
Writers are ideas people, but as we've all discovered at some point, our ideas for stories or writing projects aren't quite the same once you start typing. This week, a couple of posts take a look at realizing your limitations as a writer.
作家們是很有想法的人，但我們都只發現在某些論點，一旦開始書寫，我們對故事或寫作計劃的想法是不太一樣的。本週，藉由一些發帖來看看作為一個作家，以了解你的限制。
Also, why life experiences matter more than writing style, and a few words that no one's using—including "whom".
另外，為什麼生活經驗比寫作風格更為重要，甚至有幾句話，沒有人使用，包括“誰”。
跟隨穿越
Assessing your own writing can be a bit like a new gym membership. Expectations are high until you have to actually start working out—or turn your idea into a great story. Writers have ambitions that don't always work out because—let's face it—writing is hard. And attempting to write for a new format or industry can be most humbling of all. New York Times Magazine editor Hugo Lindgren writes about this in a piece for the magazine. It's refreshing to hear someone of Lindgren's stature discuss his long-held belief that being an editor was an “unacceptable outcome” and that “my confidence always collapsed under the weight of my withering self-criticism.” The article asks, but does not answer, another important question—why do some writers wind up writing that screenplay or novel, and others can't seem to ever break in? This was an article from January, but it’s important enough to highlight months later.
評估自己的寫作可能有點像是個新的健身房會員。直到你真正開始工作或把你的想法變成一個偉大的故事前期望很高。作家有野心但並不總是有效，因為-讓我們面對它，寫作是很難。嘗試寫一個新的格式或行業最需謙遜之心。紐約時報雜誌編輯烏戈·林格倫為雜誌寫一區塊。耳目一新的聽到林格倫身形的人討論他作為一個編輯者長期持有的信念，是一個“不可接受的結果”，並認為“我的信心總是枯萎的自我批評重量下崩潰。”文章詢問，但不回答，另一個重要的問題-為什麼有些作家為清結劇本或小說收場，而其他人似乎無法打破？這是1月的文章，但幾個月後，它仍足以凸顯關注。
This week, Edan Lepucki, author of “Ask the Writing Teacher” column at The Millions, had a similar take on the problem of matching ideas to results in response to a writer faced with three projects who could only take on one. According to Lepucki, indecision upon starting a project and self-doubt after starting it are common traits for writers. She sums up the issue this way: “A project that you haven’t yet begun can still glitter in the mind, but as soon as you set it down to paper, the thing is tarnished by the limits of your skill and talent.”
這一周，Edan Lepucki， “請教寫作老師” 專欄作者，在數以百萬計，面臨著三個項目只能採取一個的問題上也有類似匹配的想法。根據Lepucki，啟動後，啟動一個項目，自我懷疑並優柔寡斷是為作家的共同特點。她總結了這樣的問題：“你還沒有開始的一個計畫，仍然可以在腦海中閃爍發揚，但只要你將它設置寫下它可能因你的技能和才華的界限而晦暗。”
Creative writing programs can be great incubators for developing writers. But they don't offer—and, in fact, may take away from—the real world experience that becomes fodder for novels and short stories. In The Atlantic, John Reiner insists that knowing what to write is more important than knowing how to write, especially for young scribes. It's one more argument in the debate over the value of creative writing programs, but it may just mean students in these programs benefit from doing something completely different before enrolling in classes.
創意寫作課程，是個可開發作家的偉大的孵化器。但他們不提供，事實上，甚至採取遠離現實世界的經驗這個可成為小說和短篇故事的飼料。在大西洋，約翰·萊納堅持，知道寫什麼，是比知道怎麼寫更重要的，尤其是對年輕的文士來說。這是創意寫作課程的價值在辯論中的論點，但它可能只是意味著在登記報名前這些方案中受益學生做一些完全不同的類型事項
Words to watch :
觀察看字
Word usage patterns in writing evolve. We all know that. Just check out Google's N-Gram viewer and you can prove usage frequency with a chart—and no one can argue with a chart. But it's surprising how fast the patterns change. The Economist's language blog looked at a 1962 language guide from New York Times editor Theodore Bernstein, and highlights a few examples of words that have either totally fallen out of use, or have become more acceptable since Bernstein's writing—"co-ed" and "convince" among them.
字的使用模式以書寫形式演變。我們都知道這一點。剛檢查出谷歌的N-GRAM，你能證明使用頻率圖表，這圖表沒有人能爭議。但它以令人驚訝的速度很快的模式變化。經濟學家的語言博客從紐約時報編輯者西奧多·伯恩斯坦那看了一個1962年的新的語言引導，並關注幾個例子，都要么完全死去不再使用的單詞，或自伯恩斯坦的寫作後變得更容易接受- “男女同校”和“說服”在其中。
Speaking of Google's N-gram, check out its tracking of "whom." The word has been on a slow decline for a long time, and if contemporary usage is an indicator, it'll be dead within the next 50 years or so. Megan Garber of The Atlantic runs through the stats, and helps explain the decline. The primary culprits seem to be the rise of casual communication and technology.
說到谷歌的的N-gram，檢查其追踪“WHOM” 這個詞已經很長一段時間一直在緩慢下降被使用，如果當代的用法是一個指標，它在未來50年左右的時間就死定了。大西洋的梅根·加伯貫穿使用統計有助於解釋使用下滑。主要元兇似乎是非正式的溝通和技術的興起。
Evan Peterson is a writer based in Chicago, and the editor of OpenMarkets magazine at CME Group. He's on Twitter at @evanmpeterson.
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