{"id":715,"date":"2002-09-24T17:20:01","date_gmt":"2002-09-25T01:20:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2002\/09\/24\/a-gun-for-words\/"},"modified":"2019-11-27T14:06:39","modified_gmt":"2019-11-27T22:06:39","slug":"a-gun-for-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2002\/09\/24\/a-gun-for-words\/","title":{"rendered":"A gun for words"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='__iawmlf-post-loop-links' style='display:none;' data-iawmlf-post-links='[{&quot;id&quot;:15804,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/weblog.burningbird.net\\\/archives\\\/000527.php&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20250725143529\\\/https:\\\/\\\/weblog.burningbird.net\\\/archives\\\/000527.php&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-13 23:16:34&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-29 11:30:42&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-05 01:56:10&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200}],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-05 01:56:10&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]'><\/div>\n<p>I&#8217;ve heard about self-fulfilling prophecies &#8212; could this be a self-defeating prophecy?<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  The problem with reading wonderful writing by truly great authors is that my own writing suffers, dramatically, in comparison. Everything I write lately just sits on the page, flat, dejected, and suffering. If there was such a thing as a gun for words, I would shoot each of mine and give them a quick and painfree end.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Boy, do I ever understand the feeling <a href=\"http:\/\/weblog.burningbird.net\/archives\/000527.php\" title=\"Burningbird: All work and no play...\">Burningbird<\/a> describes here, but what really caught me was how spot-on that was, while in the midst of being frustrated at her own writing.<\/p>\n<p>And speaking of being dissatisfied, I just stumbled over how to put this post together through about three false starts. You&#8217;d think a simple &#8220;I think this is nifty&#8221; post would be easy, wouldn&#8217;t you?<\/p>\n<p>Oh, hell.<\/p>\n<p>I think this is nifty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The problem with reading wonderful writing by truly great authors is that my own writing suffers, dramatically, in comparison. Everything I write lately just sits on the page, flat, dejected, and suffering. If there was such a thing as a gun for words, I would shoot each of mine and give them a quick and painfree end.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2028],"tags":[16],"class_list":["post-715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-links","tag-quotes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}