Everyday Canvas

Writing: Craft and Creativity

Constance Hale says "We are born with a natural delight in the music of language. Language is an adventure, a mysterious one. "
However, Ezra Pound says, "A writer must spend as much time developing our craft as a musician does practicing scales. It does not come naturally, it is a learned craft similar to musicians, sports players or dancers."
Do you agree or disagree with Constance Hale? Do you agree or disagree with Ezra Pound?

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I agree with both. Any accomplished poet feels the music in language and how it affects each poem. Although, we all can hear music and like it, for deeper appreciation of it, some musical training is needed.

Writing is a craft, and it can be learned by everyone, but I think talent and creativity is more or less inborn. Creativity, I guess, has more to do with different parts of the brain processes working together in special ways. Talent and creativity turn the writing craft into art.

With the learned craft, anyone’s writing can be pleasant enough, flowing, clear, and readable. When art is united with the writer’s craft, it is then that we are awed by his or her work. The art in writing is what gives the author’s work its literary edge.

There are many different styles of craft that writers employ, just as there are many different ways to build anything. Some things can even be built by machines and they are just as usable as the ones built by the artists of any craft, but finding delight and appreciating any one piece, for the art of it, requires the special personal touch of the craftsman-artist.

Artistic license lets writers to tell their stories or express themselves in the special ways they want to do it. Yet, with craft alone, their works feel like they came out of a factory line. Still, it is a very good idea for anyone to learn the craft first, so their work can at least be readable; after that, when they add their art and creativity to their craft, the result can be awe-inspiring.