Quote spam!
Dec. 28th, 2006 09:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
readingredheadWhy do writers write? Because it isn't there. --Thomas Berger
One nice thing about putting the thing away for a couple of months before looking at it is that you start appreciate your own wit. Of course, this can be carried too far. But it's kind of cool when you crack up a piece of writing, and then realize you wrote it. I recommend this feeling. --Steven Brust
There is more pleasure to building castles in the air than on the ground. --Edward Gibbon
The only reason for being a professional writer is that you just can't help it. --Leo Rosten
A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people. --Thomas Mann
A blank piece of paper is God's way of telling us how hard it to be God. --Sidney Sheldon
I get up in the morning, torture a typewriter until it screams, then stop. --Clarence Budington Kelland
The faster I write the better my output. If I'm going slow, I'm in trouble. It means I'm pushing the words instead of being pulled by them. --Raymond Chandler
When once the itch of literature comes over a man, nothing can cure it but the scratching of a pen. --Samuel Lover
There's no such thing as writer's block. That was invented by people in California who couldn't write. --Terry Pratchett
A writer doesn't solve problems. He allows them to emerge. --Friedrich Dürrenmatt
Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go. --T. S. Eliot
If you start with a bang, you won't end with a whimper. --T. S. Eliot
They're fancy talkers about themselves, writers. If I had to give young writers advice, I would say don't listen to writers talk about writing or themselves. --Lillian Hellman
If you really want to hurt your parents and you don't have nerve enough to be homosexual, the least you can do is go into the arts. --Kurt Vonnegut
Some men see things as they are and ask why. Others dream things that never were and ask why not. --George Bernard Shaw
Whatever inspiration is, it's born from a continuous "I don't know." --Wislawa Szymborska
Truth maybe stranger than fiction, but fiction is truer. --Frederic Raphael
It begins with a character, usually, and once he stands up on his feet and begins to move, all I can do is trot along behind him with a paper and pencil trying to keep up long enough to put down what he says and does. --William Faulkner
*************************
So of course it would've made more sense to write, than to just post what other people have to say about writing...but sometimes it's good to hear from the greats and the not-so-greats before starting out on a journey.
One nice thing about putting the thing away for a couple of months before looking at it is that you start appreciate your own wit. Of course, this can be carried too far. But it's kind of cool when you crack up a piece of writing, and then realize you wrote it. I recommend this feeling. --Steven Brust
There is more pleasure to building castles in the air than on the ground. --Edward Gibbon
The only reason for being a professional writer is that you just can't help it. --Leo Rosten
A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people. --Thomas Mann
A blank piece of paper is God's way of telling us how hard it to be God. --Sidney Sheldon
I get up in the morning, torture a typewriter until it screams, then stop. --Clarence Budington Kelland
The faster I write the better my output. If I'm going slow, I'm in trouble. It means I'm pushing the words instead of being pulled by them. --Raymond Chandler
When once the itch of literature comes over a man, nothing can cure it but the scratching of a pen. --Samuel Lover
There's no such thing as writer's block. That was invented by people in California who couldn't write. --Terry Pratchett
A writer doesn't solve problems. He allows them to emerge. --Friedrich Dürrenmatt
Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go. --T. S. Eliot
If you start with a bang, you won't end with a whimper. --T. S. Eliot
They're fancy talkers about themselves, writers. If I had to give young writers advice, I would say don't listen to writers talk about writing or themselves. --Lillian Hellman
If you really want to hurt your parents and you don't have nerve enough to be homosexual, the least you can do is go into the arts. --Kurt Vonnegut
Some men see things as they are and ask why. Others dream things that never were and ask why not. --George Bernard Shaw
Whatever inspiration is, it's born from a continuous "I don't know." --Wislawa Szymborska
Truth maybe stranger than fiction, but fiction is truer. --Frederic Raphael
It begins with a character, usually, and once he stands up on his feet and begins to move, all I can do is trot along behind him with a paper and pencil trying to keep up long enough to put down what he says and does. --William Faulkner
So of course it would've made more sense to write, than to just post what other people have to say about writing...but sometimes it's good to hear from the greats and the not-so-greats before starting out on a journey.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-29 02:27 am (UTC)A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people. --Thomas Mann
:)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-29 05:15 am (UTC)my favorite:
A blank piece of paper is God's way of telling us how hard it to be God. --Sidney Sheldon
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-29 07:20 am (UTC)If I had to pick a favorite, probably...
One nice thing about putting the thing away for a couple of months before looking at it is that you start appreciate your own wit. Of course, this can be carried too far. But it's kind of cool when you crack up a piece of writing, and then realize you wrote it. I recommend this feeling. --Steven Brust
Reminds me too much of how it felt last year to read through the novel I wrote for National Novel Writing Month and realize that small portions of it *weren't* shit. I recommend the feeling, too.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-30 01:28 am (UTC)What was your novel about last year? I mean to start writing for that every year but then I forget and am too lazy to try to catch up.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-30 02:58 am (UTC)And then this most recent November I wrote a story about a girl who gets rejected from all the colleges she wants to go to, gets in a big fight with her parents, and runs away from home. Except this is in a sci-fi universe, so she ends up on all these different planets and such. Supposedly, the story's about her finding herself? I haven't read back through this one yet -- I'm waiting a while...
Ooh, I'd like to see the satire. I'm sure it's gorgeous.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-30 06:44 am (UTC)Hold on let me try and get the satire online somewhere so I can just give you a link instead of posting the whole thing.
...
http://www.geocities.com/spot72901/AModestProposal.html
Just don't make too much fun of me. Haha
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-31 11:47 pm (UTC)As for your modest proposal...I'm still laughing. What gave you the idea to pick that subject?
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-01 12:28 am (UTC)I was going to do a satire on the color-coded terror alert system (rainbow alert system- monitoring the homosexual agenda in America. Code purple, mandatory gay polygamous incestuos S/M marriages are enforced, and all babies are molested at birth to ensure that they do not contribute positively to society in any way. Remainging straight couples lock their children in rooms with televangelists on TV and procreate repeatedly to protect themselves against infection). However, I had talked to two or three different people who were also satirizing the terror-alert system, although not in the same way, and also my mom MIGHT have found the first draft of that other idea on my computer and vetoed it on the grounds that it was innapropriate. Maybe.
So I was trying to figure out a way to satirize the point of view that because sex serves a purpose it must be regulated to serve that purpose, and the only other bodily functions that came to mind were eating and... well, pooping. So it was born. Haha.
Did you write one in McClure?