Making lists of ideas, reading novels, scheduling time to sit down at your computer, researching new coffee shops at which to work, and establishing weekly word goals may seem like parts of writing, but they are not. They are procrastination, which, if you think about it, is actually writing in its purest form.
MIA MERCADO
“Action is character.” This is what F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in his notes while working on his final novel, The Last Tycoon, and he wrote it in caps: ACTION IS CHARACTER. If one of our greatest narrative writers had to remind himself of that right up to the end, it must be pretty important. It is. Human beings are far too complex to explain away in so many words: imperious; timid; pompous; vain; bombastic – and so on.
BLAKE BAILEY
I never kept a diary. But what I have done, one thing I did that is unusual, and Donald Barthelme put me on to this – he said, if you want to change writing, if are you having some problems, turn the paper around, instead of having it this way, turn it this way and just start writing across, whatever is on your mind. Cross writing. And you can start cross writing and say, I met that son of a (bleep) or so and so, finally happened, or, great weather Tuesday, and start going across. And it is amazing. It`s entirely different. It`s not what you would write if you were writing this way…. I used to do that. And I would fill in my thoughts, sometimes – written 10 or 12 pages longhand about what is happening, what happened the last few days. Sometimes just days going by, but not as a regular thing.
ROGER ANGELL
But the thing [Stephen Sondheim] always sort of stressed was variety, variety, variety, variety, variety. When you're dealing with a constant rhythm, no matter how great your lyrics are, if you don't switch it up, people's heads are going to start bobbing. And they're going to stop listening to what you're saying, so consistently keep the ear fresh and keep the audience surprised. And, you know, that was his sort of watchword throughout the writing of "Hamilton." I'd send him a batch of songs, and he'd say I'm going to say it again — variety, variety, variety. And so I — you know, that was my mantra during the writing of that show.
LIN-MANUEL MIRANDA
I always forget how important the empty days are, how important it may be sometimes not to expect to produce anything, even a few lines in a journal. A day when one has not pushed oneself to the limit seems a damaged, damaging day, a sinful day. Not so! The most valuable thing one can do for the psyche, occasionally, is to let it rest, wander, live in the changing light of a room.
MAY SARTON
From earliest childhood I was charmed by the materials of my craft, by pencils and paper and, later, by the typewriter and the entire apparatus of printing. To condense from one’s memories and fantasies and small discoveries dark marks on paper which become handsomely reproducible many times over still seems to me, after nearly 30 years concerned with the making of books, a magical act, and a delightful technical process. To distribute oneself thus, as a kind of confetti shower falling upon the heads and shoulders of mankind out of bookstores and the pages of magazines is surely a great privilege and a defiance of the usual earthbound laws whereby human beings make themselves known to one another.
JOHN UPDIKE
The novel in my imagination travels with me like a small lavender moth making loopy circles around my head. As soon as I start to put it on the page I kill it. It always breaks my heart. For me, the greatest challenge is to stick with the book I'm writing when what I want to do is hit the delete button.
ANN PATCHETT
We just start right off with scene one, and since we are on the film set all the time, there is no “Slow fade-in, camera tiptoes.” None of that. Just “Day” or “Night,” so that that cameraman knows how to light, not even “Morning” or “Evening.” There’s a minimum of fancy descriptions. I find with young writers, and some of them with very good ideas, that they get lost in technical descriptions of which they know very little. Nobody will say, “This is a great screenwriter because he always has the camera angles.” Just have good characters and good scenes and something that plays.
BILLY WILDER
Only two things happen to writers when they die: Either their work survives, or it becomes forgotten. Someone will turn up an old box and say, "Who's this guy Irving Wallace?" There's no rhyme or reason to it. Ask kids in high school, "Who is Somerset Maugham?" They're not going to know. He wrote books that were bestsellers in their time. But he's well-forgotten now, whereas Agatha Christie has never been more popular. She just goes from one generation to another. She's not as good a writer as Maugham, and she certainly didn't try to do anything other than entertain people. So I don't know what will happen.
STEPHEN KING
I tell my students what I tell myself, write every day, even if it’s only a few lines, an image, a funny rhyme, a snatch of overheard conversation. All this is like chopped vegetables for the soup pot or witches cauldron of poems. And I tell them to read, read, read, and imitate the poems they love. I have tried to respond to every poem I’ve ever loved and it has served me well. Poetry is like church to me, and when I read a good poem it’s like the preacher calling out to the congregation, asking for a Hail Mary or a Hallelujah or Amen!
DORIANNE LAUX
Writerly wisdom of the ages collected by the author of Advice To Writers, The Big Book of Irony, and The Portable Curmudgeon.
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