I heard this quote, or something along the lines of this the other day while watching a movie. It made me wonder if this was true. Thinking about it a lot of the super famous writers had some kind of trouble in their life, death of a loved one, loss of love, writing in times that forbid them to write etc. I did a close study of a poet for one of my other classes, Sylvia Plath which is a super known poet. In her life she dealt with depression and tried committing suicide twice, only succeeded once.
With all that being said, is it a writers experience or better yet tragedy of their life that makes them a good writer? Do people have to go through hardships to be a good writer? Or can it be that everyone has their own hardships, some obviously greater than others?
If we are going along the definition of having to deal with tragedy to make you a good writer, I wouldn't be a good writer at all.
Phillip Lopate, one of the great writers of essays and about essays, once said it was a form for the middle-aged, for people who had some perspective on life. I don't agree with that--I've read plenty of lovely essays from 20 year olds--but I also think I'm writing better at 60 than I ever did. However, the thing about needing tragedy to be a writer seems absurd to me. It seems to me that all that you need to be a writer (aside from the discipline to write often) is curiosity.
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