Writing Straight Out
Forcing sentences and paragraphs makes writing hard work. Easy writing is easy work. Robert Rankin says it well: Writing is right, comfortable, and fits when "it comes straight out."
© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved
Writer's Bite
What? Idiotic to care about the writer? Even though they're damn hard to catch, I want to see the spider that bites me.
© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved
Focus
Focus on words, see the sentence,
Focus on sentences; see the paragraph,
Focus on paragraphs, miss the story,
Focus small; write big.
© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved
Day is Done
- Lord Byron
Writers cannot withdraw themselves from their writings. It doesn't work. Sure we might read a story in which the characters, action, and dialog captivate us for three hundred pages or more, but then we are done. Whether in genre, voice, grammar, punctuation, or style, the writer is there in his story, and then there's the cover. Go to any bookstore and look at the bestsellers. Most titles are small compared to the names of their authors.
Today, Lord Byron's quotation is long out of date; it reads like he wrote it when the earth was still flat. Byron was a poet and, in his defense, readers seek themselves in poetry instead of the poet. In books they seek the story, and that is where they always find the writer. Poets withdraw and writers advance.
© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved
Years Yet to Live
- Catherine Drinker Bowen
For your dead writer, nothing is more discouraging than the realization he has years yet to live.
© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved
Victory for Life
- Michel Butor
Every book written is a victory for life.
© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved
Live with That
- Edna Ferber
Even though I believe writing will be my love until death, I wonder. If life cannot defeat a writer, why is it beating the hell out of me? Apparently, I have writing to thank for my survival; I can live with that.
© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved
Familiar to Us
"If a reporter doesn't like the person he's writing about, it shows up in his article."
- Willie Stargell
Novelists draw from such a large group of unlikable acquaintances that they never use just one in their writings. Instead, they combine the worst of each into a single character and call the monster, Antagonist. There's no wonder why such characters seem so real to us. Most are.
© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved
Inspired Writing
constant, often tedious and deliberate effort."
- William Hefferman
Inspiration is what makes the "constant, tedious, and deliberate effort" to write as easy as breathing, addicting as living, and pleasurable as... well, as pleasurable as whatever you enjoy the most. Inspired writing is no work at all.
© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved
Something to Say
"The reason one writes isn't the fact he wants to say something. He writes because he has something to say." - F. Scott Fitzgerald
Everyone has a story to tell. Most tell it with email, instant messaging, cell. phones, chat rooms, social networking, or chewing lips. Writers say it with silence.
© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved
