I'm A Writer...What's Your Excuse - Jim Murray - Canada

Does writing makes you a writer I don't know I am not a writer, yet I commit articles and posts every now and again but I have way too many interests to write everyday however I can understand your point about daily efforts I read daily though :-) Is being prolific a sign of quality I don't know sometimes I think that less is more but that maybe that is just me :-)

Pascal Derrien

7 years ago #27

s writing makes you a writer I don't know I am not a writer, yet I commit articles and posts every now and again but I have way too many interests to write everyday however I can understand your point about daily efforts I read daily though :-) Is being prolific a sign of quality I don't know sometimes I think that less is more but maybe that is just me :-)

Pascal Derrien

7 years ago #26

Jim Murray

7 years ago #25

#34
Vincent Andrew...Everybody has ideas floating around in their head. If you have a skill Like writing you have release them. Everybody is a lousy writer when they first start. I can show you tons of bad poetry and dumb stories. But if you have the desire to get better, you simply need to give into and do whatever it takes. It takes time. But then nothing good in life really happens fast.

Jim Murray

7 years ago #24

#35
I'll be happy to do a piece of righteous indigestion. I've been there a few times.

Kevin Pashuk

7 years ago #23

#30
Rebel Brown I really don't mind Dylan picking up an electric. Heck, I even play the banjo on occasion. I was doing it more to jestfully get a rise out of a fellow Beezer. Looking forward to your piece on righteous indignation... Is that where I invoke the name of a higher power or authority to justify a bad attitude?.

Wayne Yoshida

7 years ago #22

Thanks for sharing what makes you (and maybe a lot of other writers) tick, Jim Murray. I feel the same way. I can't stand not writing something. Editing everything is another habit I have that irritates some people. Was it Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. who said something like writing is a skill you either have or don't have? My "enlightenment" came in my third year of college. I discovered I have a learning disability - dyscalculia - before then, I just knew where my weak points are and learned to work around them. So my path for using words was clear for me on the basis of where I should not go. I want to know more about your Bob Dylan experience! A guy like that just doesn't pop into your house, or at least this is not so in my neighborhood!

Jim Murray

7 years ago #21

#26
Thnaks . That's great to hear. He is a genius. I don;'t know if you have read his auto biography, but it's brilliant too. It's called Chronicles. There are a lot biographies and I have read a few of them. But Chronicles was written by him and it's wonderful. In fact you just reminded me that I have to get that back from my pal Waldin, next time to go for coffee.

Jim Murray

7 years ago #20

#27
Only if they are writing movies.

Jim Murray

7 years ago #19

#24
I never really thought of it that way. But then I never thought of that behavior as all that unusual. Of course, you have to live where I live.

Joel Anderson

7 years ago #18

#22
😨😎brush on!

Jim Murray

7 years ago #17

#21
Sure Joel, any brush with fame rubs off on the people who brush it.

Joel Anderson

7 years ago #16

I never met Bob Dylan but love his work. A master poet and writer indeed. On a related note, bridging the divide and similarities between Canada and the US. I never met "Bulldog" Bob Brown, but ate dinner with Bob Geigel once, (ok, he was at the table next to me but was gracious enough to let me join him and a couple other wrestlers--or would that be wrastlers?) and was enamored with Rufus R/ "Freight Train" Jones. Both have had a positive impact and influence on me. Does that count?

Kevin Pashuk

7 years ago #15

#19
If it's any consolation, I still listen to his music. I'm not THAT miffed. I do have to admit that he has to share playlist time with a number of new musicians (who I can never remember their names - the byproduct of playlists instead of vinyl) that my 21 year old son has introduced me to. He's my new curator for music I will like. (He also likes all MY music too).

Jim Murray

7 years ago #14

#14
You need to get over that Dylan prejudice, Kevin. The man is a walking miracle. He could write all his songs on a kazoo and still be head and shoulders above everyone except Tom Wait, Neil Young & Robbie Robertson

Kevin Pashuk

7 years ago #13

#16
Not really holding onto the grudge Randy Keho... more like storing it in the pocket of my guitar case and dragging it out every so often to see if it still irks me.

Graham🐝 Edwards

7 years ago #12

Thanks for the inspiration Jim Murray.

Randy Keho

7 years ago #11

#14
You're holding onto a 50+ year-old grudge? Kevin Pashuk

Kevin Pashuk

7 years ago #10

#1
Thanks Don Kerr... YOU MET BOB DYLAN??!!??? I cut my guitar chops on his stuff and wore out vinyl records playing his songs over and over and over and over. I still haven't forgiven him for bringing out the electric guitar however.

Joel Anderson

7 years ago #9

Between mild ADD, equally pesky and mild adult onset dyslexia and struggles with multi-tasking, I think I may just be in the category of a purveyor of streams of consciousness. As time permits of course.

Jim Murray

7 years ago #8

#10
Madeline Anderson-Balmer...there are literally hundreds of different kinds of writing. But the best kind is the kind that makes you happy. I also write lyrics and am working on a long short story that will probably end up as a movie treatment. I don't really control those things. They just show up. Thanks..

Jim Murray

7 years ago #7

#3
Thanks Irene Hackett...If that was the net result of this piece, then my work here was successful. Keep writing.

Jim Murray

7 years ago #6

#4
Thanks Randy Keho...You know I have very few regrets in life, great career, fabulous woman for a wife, kids that have managed to stay out of jail and become successful, but one of the few regrets I harbor was having chosen wood shop over typing in high school.. I cannot type for shit and have never actually made anything you would call useful out of wood either.

Jim Murray

7 years ago #5

#1
Thanks Don Kerr...I tend to focus my posts, since I write so damn many of them, and when you do that stuff gets left out. I owe a hell of a lot to my mentors primarily Bruce Murray, a 70 year old copywriter who told me the only book I needed to read about writing was The Elements Of Style, Terry O'Malley who who taught me how to play the advertising game and Pete Langmuir the Creative Director who was constantly forcing me to test my own belief in the work I was doing. From those three guys I learned the craft. Perhaps I'll expand that out into another post on mentors.

Jim Murray

7 years ago #4

#1
I tend to focus my posts, since I write so damn many of them, and when you do that stuff gets left out. I owe a hell of a lot to my mentors primarily Bruce Murray, a 70 year old copywriter who told me the only book I needed to read about writing was The Elements Of Style, Terry O'Malley who who taught me how to play the advertising game and Pete Langmuir the Creative Director who was constantly forcing me to test my own belief in the work I was doing. From those three guys I learned the craft. Perhaps I'll expand that out into another post.

Jim Murray

7 years ago #3

#1
I tend to focus my posts, since I write so damn many of them, and when you do that stuff gets left out.

Randy Keho

7 years ago #2

As you know, we can both be a bit opinionated, but we are much more alike than different. The writing bug bit me early on, too. I don't know where I would be today if it hadn't. I applaud your encouraging words to potential writers. We share an idol in Bob Dylan. I've never had the pleasure to have met him, but he did donate $10,000.00 to a friend's project to build a handicapped-accessible playground in our city. He read about it in the local paper while waiting to play a show at the local theater. I've never worked in advertising, but I have been paid as a member of the dreaded mass media. Advertising and mass media are joined at the hip, you can't have one without the other, and social media has become mass media. I would add only one item to your list. If you want to be a writer, it helps to learn how to type. My high school's star running back and I I spent a semester in typing class with a room full of young women. That's when secretarial skills were nearly mandatory for them. It was out of the ordinary for young men. They took pity on us as we began to learn the keyboard and peck our way to an increased number of words per minute. We ate it up.

don kerr

7 years ago #1

Ah there Jim Murray. When we met in Port Credit the other day, we chatted a bit about how we got started in this business of fashioning words into motivating conversation. The only thing I would add to what you have so well set out here is the importance of early encouragement and mentoring. One of the first bits of commercial writing I ever did was completely demolished by the then editor of the weekly newspaper I had just joined. He had been in the newspaper business since he laboured alongside Charles Dickens and he had the liver spots and nicotine-stained fingers to prove it. For a while I took heed of what he said but when the piece garnered some positive response and helped us gain some new advertisers I reconsidered. I learned a great lesson then - this guy had been in the business a long time but he was still editor of a tiny town weekly and he was full of shit! About two weeks after he tried to take me down, my publisher announced to both of us that I was the new editor and this gnarly veteran would now have to submit his copy to me. It took him only about half a 26'er to decide "Screw this" and off he went to an even smaller tinier town weekly. I left the paper after only 7 months (after the second pay cheque bounced) and joined a large life insurance company. There I suddenly found myself surrounded by brilliant writers and creative thinkers who were welcoming and supportive. People like Jim Chick, Pete Dunn, Don Vincent, Isobel Dix, and my new boss Jim Cavanagh. Sadly, every one of these people, each of them mentors, are deceased but they are far from dead. There is literally not a piece of copy that leaves my hands that doesn't have their fingerprints all over it. Think you've inspired a longer post here my friend. Thanks for the inspiration. Damn, I may have found myself another mentor - even at our advanced age we can learn right?

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