Learning and Ignorance

I started Samuel R. Delany's About Writing yesterday and haven't been able to put it down. From the preface, Delany states, "...let me say, this is a book for serious creative writers."

You can say that again. There's no fluff here. Delany is serious about writing and he expects the same from you. Reading the book is the closest thing to Clarion that I've experienced, presenting several valuable lessons, some of them hard ones.

From the Introduction:

"To learn anything worth knowing requires that you learn as well how pathetic you were when you were ignorant of it. The knowledge of what you have lost irrevocably because you were in ignorance of it is the knowledge of the worth of what you have learned. A reason knowledge/learning in general is so unpopular with so many people is because very early we all learn there is a phenomenologically unpleasant side to it: to learn anything entails the fact that there is no way to escape learning that you were formerly ignorant, to learn that you were a fool, that you have already lost irretrievable opportunities, that you have made wrong choices, that you were silly and limited. These lessons are not pleasant."

As some of my Southern friends would say, "You ain't never lied."

Yet along with that unpleasant realization comes the new knowledge that you've taken at least one step (even if it's a baby step) forward along the road to becoming a better writer. For me, that overrides any unpleasantness that might momentarily slap me in the face.

Much more about this book later.