This is for the
writers, and readers, out there.
I’m one of both, and to listen to the experts -- writers and readers themselves -- writing and reading go together like peas and carrots, words and sentences, war and eagle, even roll and tide, or whatever simile you prefer.
If Stephen King and a bunch of other great bestselling authors are to be believed, you have to do one to succeed
at the other.
In his gift to us
writers, “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft,” King says: “If you want to
be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a
lot. There's no way around these two things that I'm aware of, no shortcut.”
Thinking of the King quote -- the latest justification for my lifelong reading habit --I found a subject for today's blog post-- which is a priority as I realized it’s been a month today since my last post here. (When I began this personal blog in my downsized
haze in 2009, I posted every week. That schedule slid substantially since then,
through jobs, family, assorted tasks and an iPhone with Words with Friends on it.)
Researching quotes from writers about writing and reading, I found many gems I share here. Some address my current other pressing challenge of completing revisions to my oft-written about novel, now in its sixth revision (and with a new self-imposed deadline I'll discuss in the next post).
I start with a some other bits of wisdom from King, appropriate to me and any other writer’s reading and revising self:
I start with a some other bits of wisdom from King, appropriate to me and any other writer’s reading and revising self:
“Write with the
door closed, rewrite with the door open.”
“You cannot hope to sweep someone else away by
the force of your writing until it has been done to you.”
“Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even
when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings.”
“Books are a uniquely portable magic.”
-- all from Stephen King, "On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft"
-- all from Stephen King, "On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft"
OTHER WISE WORDS FROM WRITERS AND AUTHORS:
“A blank piece of paper
is God’s way of telling us how hard it to be God." - Sidney Sheldon
"Read, read, read, and read."- Larry McMurtry
"It’s none of their business that you have to
learn to write. Let them think you were born that way." - Ernest Hemingway
"Most writers regard the truth as their most
valuable possession, and therefore are most economical in its use." - Mark Twain
"And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen
Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name." - William Shakespeare (from A Midsummer Night’s Dream)
The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen
Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name." - William Shakespeare (from A Midsummer Night’s Dream)
“If you want to write, you've got to shut yourself up in a
room and write.” -- Larry Brown
"If you can tell stories, create characters,
devise incidents, and have sincerity and passion, it doesn’t matter a damn how
you write." - Somerset Maugham
"It is perfectly okay to write garbage—as
long as you edit brilliantly." - C. J. Cherryh
"Any man who keeps working is not a failure.
He may not be a great writer, but if he applies the old-fashioned virtues of
hard, constant labor, he’ll eventually make some kind of career for himself as
writer. - Ray Bradbury
"Not that the story need be long, but it will
take a long while to make it short." - Henry David Thoreau
"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by." - Douglas Adams
"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by." - Douglas Adams
"Words are a lens to focus one’s mind." - Ayn Rand
"Half my life is an act of revision." - John Irving
"People on the outside think there’s something magical about writing, that you go up in the attic at midnight and cast the bones and come down in the morning with a story, but it isn’t like that. You sit in back of the typewriter and you work, and that’s all there is to it." - Harlan Ellison
"Writing a novel is like driving a car at
night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole
trip that way." - E. L. Doctorow
"Get it down. Take chances. It may be bad,
but it’s the only way you can do anything really good." - William Faulkner
"Begin with an individual, and before you
know it you have created a type; begin with a type, and you find you have
created – nothing." - F. Scott Fitzgerald
"The unread story is not a story; it is
little black marks on wood pulp. The reader, reading it, makes it live: a live
thing, a story." - Ursula K. Le Guin
"Everywhere I go I’m asked if I think the
university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don’t stifle enough of
them." - Flannery O’Connor
"I can’t write five words but that I change
seven." - Dorothy Parker
"There’s no such thing as writer’s block.
That was invented by people in California who couldn’t write. - Terry Pratchett
"Omit needless words." - No. 17 “Elements of
Style” by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White
"Rejection slips, or form letters, however
tactfully phrased, are lacerations of the soul, if not quite inventions of the
devil—but there is no way around them." - Isaac Asimov
"Tell the readers a story! Because without a story, you are merely using words to prove you can string them together in logical sentences." - Anne McCaffrey
"Tell the readers a story! Because without a story, you are merely using words to prove you can string them together in logical sentences." - Anne McCaffrey
“All the information you need can be given
in dialogue."- Elmore Leonard
"All the words I use in my stories can be found in the dictionary—it’s just a matter of arranging them into the right sentences." - Somerset Maugham
"All the words I use in my stories can be found in the dictionary—it’s just a matter of arranging them into the right sentences." - Somerset Maugham
"Exercise the writing muscle every day, even
if it is only a letter, notes, a title list, a character sketch, a journal
entry. Writers are like dancers, like athletes. Without that exercise, the
muscles seize up." - Jane Yolen
"If you write one story, it may be bad; if
you write a hundred, you have the odds in your favor." - Edgar Rice Burroughs
"Finishing a book is just like you took a
child out in the back yard and shot it." - Truman Capote
“The road to
hell is paved with works-in-progress.” - Philip Roth
“The road to
hell is paved with adverbs.” - Stephen King
“It wasn't that I had
gotten it right . . . but that I had gotten true.” - Rick Bragg
“Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting
struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake
such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither
resist nor understand.” - George Orwell
“Not a wasted
word. This has been a main point to my literary thinking all my life.”- Hunter S. Thompson
“We are all
apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.” - Ernest Hemingway
“Making
people believe the unbelievable is no trick; it’s work. … Belief and reader absorption come in the
details: An overturned tricycle in the gutter of an abandoned neighborhood can
stand for everything.” -Stephen King
“For your born writer, nothing is so healing
as the realization that he has come upon the right word.” - Catherine Drinker Bowen
“The greatest part of a writer’s time is spent
in reading, in order to write; a man will turn over half a library to make one
book.” - Samuel Johnson
“If it sounds
like writing, I rewrite it. Or, if proper usage gets in the way, it may have to
go. I can’t allow what we learned in English composition to disrupt the sound
and rhythm of the narrative.” - Elmore Leonard
“Write.
Rewrite. When not writing or rewriting, read. I know of no shortcuts.” - Larry L. King
“I do not
over-intellectualize the production process. I try to keep it simple: Tell the
damned story.”- Tom Clancy
“When your story is ready for rewrite, cut it
to the bone. Get rid of every ounce of excess fat. This is going to hurt;
revising a story down to the bare essentials is always a little like murdering
children, but it must be done.” - Stephen King
“Beware of advice—even this.” - Carl Sandburg
“I would
advise anyone who aspires to a writing career that before developing his talent
he would be wise to develop a thick hide.” - Harper Lee
“Just write every day of your life. Read
intensely. Then see what happens. Most of my friends who are put on that diet
have very pleasant careers.”- Ray Bradbury
And finally,
another of my hero authors speaks of printed books versus digital (a subject for yet another post):
“Weeping for Anna Karenina and
being terrified by Hannibal Lecter, entering the heart of darkness with Mistah
Kurtz, having Holden Caulfield ring you up — some things should happen on soft
pages, not cold metal.” – Harper Lee
Picture of the day:
Post-it note with King's advice is still stuck to my computer monitor, several years later. King also says open the door for revisions; my door is open, but the post-it note stays put. |
Song of the day:
"Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book?
It took me years to write. Will you take a look?"
-- "Paperback Writer," The Beatles