© Bridget Whelan
If you want to use any of this material contact me and there is a very good chance I will say YES.
However, if you just cut and paste into your own blog or whatever and pass it off as your own then there's a very good chance I will find out. Don't fall into the trap of thinking the internet is so vast and expanding so fast (note the fancy internal rhyme)] that no one will know.
Reblogged this on mira prabhu and commented:
As Kurt Vonnegut says, “The writing style which is most natural for you is bound to echo the speech you heard when a child…
All these varieties of speech are beautiful, just as the varieties of butterflies are beautiful. No matter what your first language, you should treasure it all your life. If it happens to not be standard English, and if it shows itself when your write standard English, the result is usually delightful, like a very pretty girl with one eye that is green and one that is blue.”
As I write and re-write my own second novel, beta-readers point out that I am using an Elizabethan phrase here or there…what they may not realize is that I picked up those phrases in childhood, in post-colonial India…and they are authentic to me. Thank you Kurt Vonnegut, and Bridget Whelan, for reminding me that authenticity is more vital to good writing than “being right” in the critical eyes of the mainstream.
So glad you found Kurt Vonnegut’s thoughts on the writer’s voice every bit as valid and thought provoking as I did…fascinated that Elizabethan phrases are a natural element in the way you express yourself, freely and without self-conscious construction. They are part of your mother tongue….
Great observation, Bridget. Thanks for this.
Reblogged this on theowlladyblog.