Weekly Blog Post 1

"A bad book is as much of a labour to write as a good one; it comes as sincerely from the author's soul."--Aldous Huxley

This quote attracted my attention because I think it makes a good point that people should consider when writing and reading or working with others' works. When writing, it reminds you that you do need to put in a lot of thought and effort into your work but that the amount of thought and effort does not directly correlate to the success of the work. This enforces the importance of having peers look at your work and criticize it for you. That will show you if all your work is paying off and turning into something good, or if you are working hard in the wrong direction. When reading or working with another author's work you should keep in mind again that the success of the work does not directly correlate to the work put into that work. So don't judge the efforts of the writing just by the quality of the work. Which is hard to do because you don't usually have the opportunity of seeing the authors hard work. When editing someone's paper, if it's just plan bad, try to find what they are trying to do and explain to them how they are failing.

To me, it's basically just saying that life isn't fair, but specifically talking about writing a book. If life were fair the effort you put into anything would directly correlate to the success of it. Unfortunately, in some things, including writing, some people just got it while others may not. This is somewhat discouraging to me because I've never been real proud of my writing, or felt confident with it, so this just scares me that I could put in a lot of effort and still just not have the good result I am striving for. I hope I always am able to find reliable people to look at my work and criticize it many times in the process but also that I will think thoroughly and critically if I am communicating my purpose with the audience effectively, not just putting my thoughts on paper.