When Keeping It Real On Twitter Goes Wrong ...

[Boom_70]

I have a dear dentist friend who lives very large.
You strike me as a man who likes more than a touch of the good life, type.
Maybe you would have grown to like cleaning teeth.
I do know they don't tweet each other with praise.

That's why dentists have the highest suicide rate of all professions, more than five times average.

http://www.businessinsider.com/jobs-commit-suicide-2010-10?op=1

It is hard being this right all the time.

Probably from reading too much long form in their office magazines.

In an odd way long form writers compliment the dental profession.

 

[Versatile]

I have a dear dentist friend who lives very large.
You strike me as a man who likes more than a touch of the good life, type.
Maybe you would have grown to like cleaning teeth.
I do know they don't tweet each other with praise.

That's why dentists have the highest suicide rate of all professions, more than five times average.

http://www.businessinsider.com/jobs-commit-suicide-2010-10?op=1

It is hard being this right all the time.

Probably from reading too much long form in their office magazines.

In an odd way long form writers compliment the dental profession.

I was under the impression we were never to compliment anyone.

 

[brandonsneed]

Can't speak for others, but the interviews I do and the conversations I have with these writers has nothing to do with fawning. I want to learn. So do other young, hungry writers. I try to provide a place where we can all learn. I'm too busy with paying work to update it as much as I'd like, but that's what it's all about. Not fawning. Not worshipping.

Learning.

Getting better.

You know, improving oneself.

Since I'm a writer and, for now and awhile at least, mostly write things that are journalism, it's beneficial to me to learn from really good journalists. It's really that simple.

Trust me. I'm not the type to waste time or energy on idol worship.

I really admire what some guys—Jones, Tom Lake, Wright, etcetera—can do with the written word, especially as journalists. Talking to people about the intimate details of their lives, and then trying to write something beautiful based off what they tell me—sometimes it just intimidates the heck of out of me. But I love it. You love something, you go all in to cultivate it.

That's where talking to and interviewing these writers comes in.

It's mind-blowingly shortsighted and petty and I don't even know what for people to imply something like that is something as shallow and cheap as fawning. I'm not a fanboy. I'm not trying to score brownie points with these guys. I want to learn how they do what they do, because what they do is often damn impressive.

I care a great deal about what I do. So much that sometimes it makes me feel crazy. Because, c'mon. These are just words, just stories. But for some reason I believe they matter, I believe they are—or at least have the potential to be—important. I've been given great opportunities and I've come to realize I have a lot of passion for the craft and for people and for telling stories well, and so I'm trying to do the best I can.

And I think the same goes for most of those guys people like to dump on for being elitist or arrogant or too complimentary of each other. I could be wrong. But from my interactions with Jones, KVV, Wright, Tom, and the others, one thing I do not get from them is an elitist arrogance. I get passion and I get empathy and I get, yeah, fear and insecurity. Writing is just crazy intimate. The words you put out there for the masses to read have all been formed from your own head—from your own heart. Hours have been spent on them. No, not hours. Days. Sometimes even weeks.

So, yeah. That's why sometimes you feel like sending a 140-character tweet to another writer. To let him know you appreciate what he's done. Because God knows, there are enough jackasses tearing him down.

 

[YGBFKM]

Someone's going to tell you that's a great post.

 

[Boom_70]

Someone's going to tell you that's a great post.

YGBFKM .... is one of our best.

 

[Versatile]

Yeah, I echo what Boom_70 said. That was great work from YGBFKM.

 

[JackReacher]

Someone's going to tell you that's a great post.

That's God's work right there.

 

[YankeeFan]

I was first clued into a young writer, Ryan Sonner, right here on SportsJournalists.com.

People really spoke glowingly of him.

I wonder what ever happened to him.

 

[JackReacher]

I was first clued into a young writer, Ryan Sonner, right here on SportsJournalists.com.

People really spoke glowingly of him.

I wonder what ever happened to him.

Bombed out last I heard.

 

[Norrin Radd]

I was first clued into a young writer, Ryan Sonner, right here on SportsJournalists.com.

People really spoke glowingly of him.

I wonder what ever happened to him.

Bombed out last I heard.

Bombed out of daily sports journalism?

What a failure.

 

[Boom_70]

I was first clued into a young writer, Ryan Sonner, right here on SportsJournalists.com.

People really spoke glowingly of him.

I wonder what ever happened to him.

Room got dusty reading that one YF. Well done !

 

[JayFarrar]

I guess it is the peculiar orbit of this place that the same names keep coming up over and over again — Jones, Thompson, the Gangrey crew, etc.

Maybe it is because of the ESPN affiliation or maybe it is because they'll mix it up on Twitter or here, on occasion.

Or some of the certain obsessions around these parts.

It is oddly fascinating that Scott Price, Chris Ballard, Michael Lewis are all acclaimed magazine writers yet no one spends that much time dissecting or discussing their work. (Has a GQ article ever been linked here before?) Yet some of them cruise through these parts and a couple of them have been kind enough to me to help with things I have worked on.