Sealion II

Some of my nearest and dearest are, have been, or will be lawyers. I put it to you: does this essay speak truth?

Via the Volokhs.

For what it's worth, I think a very similar essay could be written about being a doctor. Come to that, a fairly similar essay could be written about being a research scientist.

Moral of the story: there ain't no free lunch, kids.

Too bad. I was getting hungry.

There is an old saw that one's first million words of writing will be junk. (There's a blog name for the concept, of course. There is probably a blog named for everything under the sun, at this point, plus a few things that aren't (viz. the indessed clan: Roscivs, Lady J Gray, and Lieutenant Renji).

Today I am wondering how many words I have written. I wouldn't be surprised if it was more than a million by now, counting the school essays, applications, paper drafts, and online maunderings of various sorts. Maybe I'm into paydirt already?

I don't think most blog posts count, though, or message board posts, or most e-mail. If you don't polish, it's just so much flimmery. Mere communication cuts not the mustard in the matter of improving one's writing. (Not that there's anything wrong with merely communicating!)

I once read part of a truly harrible book that someone had in their house; it was obviously the product of a vanity press, and it made me think of all the people who say "I think I have a book in me." And maybe they do, but that doesn't mean they should necessarily let it out! People are deceived by the fact that the "mere communication" level of writing is easy to reach; we teach first graders to do it all the time. Having something worth reading--that's a lot harder. Come to that, it might even be hard enough to justify Yeat's comparison to manual labor.

No wonder the scriptwriters are striking. Writing is hard work. Not as hard as W.B. Yeats might have you believe, although it's probably harder to do well than it is to wash floors. But still hard.

Perhaps this is one of the reasons that so many bloggers rely on pictures?