Last entry I said that I had always written in a very literary way, and that it's story structure I still need to learn. Looking at this in higher resolution, I was wrong.
More properly—from grade school through high school and a little beyond I wrote very genre-oriented stuff, but I knew nothing about story structure and had never looked into any writing books. Then somewhere in my 20's or early 30's I let my writing style relax toward the literary, doubtless because that's the way some of my favorite authors wrote. But I didn't understand much about literature either. I have work to do in both regions (but something is telling me not to learn too much about literary, let it happen naturally).
Since joining this message board about a year and a half ago I've learned a lot, some on the board, some from books. The majority of what I've learned has been in genre, though as I mentioned a few posts back, John Gardner's and Douglas Glover's books do seem geared toward literary. But most of what I've been able to glean about literary approach comes directly from my own observations and studies into poetic film.
It's been a period of deep study with little writing. I do believe there's a time for acquiring and digesting knowledge, and a time to put it to use in order to consolidate what you've learned. That time is rapidly approaching.
Side Notes
I already realized painting has a similar dialectic, with illustration on the narrative side and fine art on the more poetic side. Rock music seems to have its own equivalent:
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