February 2012
14 posts
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“1. Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish. Lose track of the 400...”
– John Steinbeck on “how to keep from going nuts” while writing.
From Paris Review - The Art of Fiction No. 45.
via openculture which also has a great video of Steinbeck’s 1962 acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize for Literature.
(via kenyatta)
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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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