Monday, April 12, 2010

How smart is smart?

As you may know, I sort of have a crush on John Green. He's an amazing writer, funny, fast paced, and every character feels SO real. The thing about John is, he's smart. Like super smart. Every time I watch one of his videos I learn something.

I'm reading his newest book, where he's telling the same jokes I tell in my WIP but much funnier.

Whenever I read interviews with authors, I'm never left with the feeling of, "well, that person clearly can't tie his shoes."

I'm not the smartest human being in the world... I could fill up blogs of all the dumb things I do in a week--- maybe that will be my next project... instead of Project Nice, it will be Project Erinn's an Idiot.

But I feel like I've got a functional brain, so why am I not "John Green Smart"?

Do I need to be John Green Smart in order to write a good book?

What's the IQ level of the average pro writer?

I"m smart enough to know, there's SO much out there I don't know about. How much the stuff that's out there will I need to know about to be a good writer.

Does anyone know?

2 comments:

  1. True, there's a lot of stuff out there that you may not know, but you don't need to know all of it to be a good writer. If you're not writing sci-fi then you don't need to know about quantum mechanics. If you're not writing a mystery then you probably don't need to know about forensics. If you're not writing historical fiction then you don't really need to know about the Celtic Pantheon.

    The most important weapon in a writer's arsenal is a fertile imagination. As long as you've got that then you're golden. Everything else can be learned. It just takes lots of practice.

    =-)

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