Say what?

“When you are describing a shape, or sound, or tint;
Don’t state the matter plainly, but put it in a hint;
And learn to look at all things with a sort of mental squint.”
~Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
“All my best thoughts were stolen by the ancients.”
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
“The coroner will find ink in my veins and blood [...]

Say what?

“It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness.”–Leo Tolstoy
“Writing is not a genteel profession. It’s quite nasty and tough and kind of dirty.”–Rosemary Mahoney
“Writing is the flip side of sex–it’s good only when it’s over.”–Hunter S. Thompson
“If the doctor told me I had six minutes to live, I’d type a [...]

Say What?

Listen. The best conversations you’ll ever have are the ones where you talk the least.
–JA Konrath
(Why is this such a tough one for some people? Sheesh.)

Shall we always contradict ourselves?

1. Look before you leap. » He who hesitates is lost.
2. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. » Don’t beat your head against a brick wall.
3. Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today. » Don’t cross the bridge until you come to it.
4. Two heads are better than one. » Paddle your [...]

Say What? (Critiques and beta-reading.)

“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.” — Mark Twain
“If after being in someone’s presence, you feel like you’ve lost a quart of plasma, avoid that presence.” — William S. Burroughs
And while [...]

Say What? (Bloodletting.)

“There’s nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.”
– Walter Wellesley “Red” Smith

Say What?

“One of the most difficult qualities you must develop as a writer is the discipline to keep going, even if what you’re writing seems terrible. Some of my best poems almost didn’t get written because the first few lines (or the whole first draft) seemed stupid and boring.” — Ronald Wallace

He Said, She Said. (Or we could be Talking Dirty, whichever.)

 
(originally posted 2/2/07, Writingscape V1.0)
“Plotting is like sex. Plotting is about desire and satisfaction, anticipation and release. You have to arouse your reader’s desire to know what happens, to unravel the mystery, to see good triumph. You have to sustain it, keep it warm, feed it, just a little bit, not too much at a [...]

Don’t stop the insanity. Voices are good.

 
(originally posted 12/8/06, Writingscape V1.0)
“Characters take on life sometimes by luck, but I suspect it is when you can write most entirely out of yourself, inside the skin, heart, mind and soul of a person who is not yourself, that a character becomes in his own right another human being on the page.” —Eudora Welty

Say what?

“Writing a novel is like driving a car at night.  You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” — E.L. Doctorow