What Nails It is a novel by Greil Marcus and was published by Yale University’s press in part of their series called Why I Write. Marcus’ edition is a mere 87 pages, and while I am not sure if that is a precedent or his choice, it might be some of the most compelling 87 pages I have read yet. So compelling,in fact, that I have only been able to read 30 of those pages since I got it friday.
For NHS, we took a field trip to the Greenwood District in Tulsa, and while we were there we stopped at a small book store with some eccentric name I can’t remember. I really had no intention of buying anything, save for a few postcards I picked up for my pen pal.
However, a friend grabbed this tiny pale book off the shelf and then put it back down quickly, before I asked her to hand it to me. It is small not only in that it is thin, again less than one hundred pages, but that it is also tiny in height. It was not immediately clear to me what the novel was about. I was intrigued by the siz e, when I saw the millimeter of a red banner in the top leftcornertitled WhyI Write.
Marcus addresses his writing in this sort of roundabout way that every writer who is overly poetic wishes they could achieve, but onl y end up sounding like a try hard. Almost reminiscent of my own writing.
Hedoesitsoeffor tlessly though and so I find myself asking the question of why I write. Not because I care to know but because maybe it will allow my writing to grow closer to his level which is in itself revealing.
I write for a variety of reasons; joy, entertainment, release. Primarily though because I like to be good at things. Being good at writing is subjective. Through this though, there is a certain benefit. I know I am a good writer because I believe I am a good writer. If nobody read this column and I wrote it week after week only for it to be hamster bedding or burned in a fireplace, I would still be just as proud of myself.
Writing is not measured in how well others like what you have written,but rather by how well you like what you’ve written. So to me, even at 16, if I never wrote again I would still call myself a writer and I would need no proof otherwise.
That is why I write, because I have already accomplished my dream and there is no room for failure, so why stop now?