February 2012
12 posts
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nickmiller:
“I want you to imagine a world where writing is a very uncool talent. Imagine that there’s very little money in it. Imagine that your parents will hate you for embracing it, that your friends will make fun of you, that no girl will be impressed by it. Imagine that you’ll never truly be fulfilled by anything that you write. Imagine a life stacked with many lonely days and nights....
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“A character is never the author who created him. It is quite likely, however,...”
– Albert Camus, The Invisible Summer (1958)
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I got assaulted by an idea last night...
It jumped on me right when I was ready to fall asleep and held on tight with arms and legs until I had no choice but to turn on the light, grab the small notebook I keep on my nightstand, and start writing the story of a mirror and a child.
Eventually, I made a deal with the story: I would write down the beginning of it and finish it the next day if it would just let me go to bed. It did let me...
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nickmiller:
For me, the journey of trying to write something good has been filled with agonizing moments, so many that I’ve often questioned why I keep pursuing this dream; but it’s during those rare moments when I’m in it, truly in it, and I’m banging away at the laptop keys, chasing a fresh idea, and bobbing my head as if I were a fucking concert pianist playing in front of a large crowd when...
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“A non-writing writer is a monster courting insanity.”
– Franz Kafka (via amandaonwriting)
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“There is no secret code to breaking through the blocks, but there is one...”
– Laraine Herring
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“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
– Ernest Hemingway
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January 2012
9 posts
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A leap of faith...
Recently, it has come to my attention a single line that gets repeated in some of the short biographies that are usually printed at the back of the books, in regards to the author. The sentence goes something like this: …until she/he decided to leave their job and write full-time…
They left what they were doing to write full-time.
Full-time.
That’s when it hit me: I realized that...
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“I don’t write like that. I write in crevices of earth. I write in loops like...”
–
April Xiong, “Where I Write #21: On the Edge of Sky and Sea”
(via leopoldgursky)
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“We came to writing at an earlier age, from an urge to release a scream that had...”
– Why I Write by Stephen Elliott - The Rumpus.net (via leopoldgursky)
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“Writing is not lying, nor is it theft. It is a journey and search for...”
– Richard Flanagan (via teachingliteracy)
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“He gazed intensely at a sheet of paper, breath suspended, a word on the...”
– Patricia A. McKillip, The Bards of Bone Plain
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“The problem is that for most people, any kind of writing looks like work to...”
– Professional writer and fanfic writer Naomi Novik (via kenyatta)
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By the way, thank you very much for following this blog. I truly appreciate it. <3
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A short one...
I have been neglecting this blog without meaning to. December was crazy and I had very little time to write, and I’m still trying to get used to 2012.
I’ve been reading a lot and not writing enough and that needs to change. Not the reading a lot, which is, in the end, an essential part of writing, but the second one. Motivation and space is what I need to get back into my writing...
December 2011
7 posts
4 tags
“Sometimes a story interests me too much, for one reason or another, simply to...”
– Peter S. Beagle
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“… what I could say about your tendency to doubt or about your inability to bring...”
–
Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet (trans. Stephen Mitchell)
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“I want to write books that unlock the traffic jam in everybody’s head.”
– ~John Updike (via karanablue)
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Writing is a risky business.
“To nonwriters, personal risk in writing sounds very bizarre. After all, we’re not ice climbing or running the Colorado River in a raft made of three planks. We’re sitting down and moving our hands. Not so much risk there. But the risk of writing is an internal risk. You brave the depths of your own being and then, oh my, bring it up for commentary by the world. Not the work of wimps.”
-Laraine...
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November 2011
9 posts
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Staring at the first blank page.
translucent-ink:
I vow to not fear a blank page, but to embrace it. I will tame these vast wild fields of white, these barren sheets of nothingness, and fill them with the seeds of my mind. With enough time and practice, these seeds, planted so carefully in these divided rows, will sprout some form of life. There will be plenty of weeds, I’m sure, but hopefully, with enough care, an entire,...
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“Writing, real writing, should leave a small sweet bruise somewhere on the...”
– Clarissa Pinkola Estés
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Maureen Johnson: ASK AUNTIE MJ: SKIPPITY DO DA →
maureenjohnsonbooks:
handful-of-berries asked you:
Do you think it’s better to start at the beginning of your novel and just write straight through or skip around and write the parts you’re most excited about first?
Glorious handful-of-berries,
Auntie MJ is a skipper. I don’t usually write books from start to…
I’m glad to know I’m not the only skipper out there.
...
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“Learn to write by doing it. Read widely and wisely. Increase your word power....”
– P.D. James (via ilovereadingandwriting)
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Letting go...
“…and I knew in that moment that my writing would never breathe on its own if I didn’t learn how to let go.”
-Laraine Herring-
I started writing my first -and, so far, only- novel years ago, five years to this day precisely. It sprung unexpectedly out of a random writing exercise from a book I never finished reading; a simple exercise: write something in first person as if you were a...
October 2011
1 post
9 tags
In the beginning...
Hello and welcome, dear readers. You might be wondering what this blog is about (or you might not) but, fret no more, because I am going to explain it all right now.
I discovered this little book called Writing begins with the breath, by Laraine Herring, a few weeks ago and I decided to buy it. I don’t want to get too much into it because I’m sure a lot of this will surface in the coming months...