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Viewing all posts tagged "advice"
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What a great idea! A WPA poster from the 1930s, via booklover, bugseatbooks, and lotusohm.
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Ten rules, an edited list
The Guardian has published a list of various writers’ own personal rules of writing. Via bobulate, who’s taken the time to further distill the Guardian’s list into a very brief and helpful form.
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”We have to look at our own inertia, insecurities, self-hate, fear that, in truth, we have nothing valuable to say. When your writing blooms out of the back of this garbage compost, it is very stable. You are not running from anything. You can have a sense of artistic security. If you are not afraid of the voices inside you, you will not fear the critics outside you.
Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones
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”And what, you ask, does writing teach us? First and foremost, it reminds us that we are alive and that it is gift and a privilege, not a right. We must earn life once it has been awarded us. Life asks for rewards back because it has favored us with animation. So while our art cannot, as we wish it could, save us from wars, privation, envy, greed, old age, or death, it can revitalize us amidst it all.
Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing
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Finch: A Primer on Novel Openings (Please Chime In)
Jeff VanderMeer gives a master class in writing the beginning of a novel. This is a fascinating look at how real writers write, and very educational. It’s particularly encouraging to see some of his early, discarded openings and compare them to the finished product. It’s a reminder that first drafts don’t need to be perfect, just finished.
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Revising Fiction by David Madden: Leading by Example (and with TOC Checklist)
Jeff VanderMeer shares his appreciation for the book Revising Fiction (now out of print, sadly). VanderMeer shares how the book “radically changed” his perspective on revision:
I grew immeasurably as a writer and began to exhibit more control. In encountering questions I didn’t even understand at the time, I also came to understand that there is no such thing as “mastery” in writing fiction — that there would always be more to learn, more to look forward to internalizing. These two lessons, and the presence of masters of fiction ghosting through the text, soon made Revising Fiction and me inseparable. And I still return to it every year to see what else I can learn from it.
There are several used copies available for sale on Amazon, so I might consider picked one up eventually. In the meantime, VanderMeer provides most of the table of contents that is, essentially, a list of 183 questions to ask oneself while revising fiction.
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”The job of a writer is to write. Anything else a writer does is entirely on his or her free time and subject to his or her own whim.
John Scalzi (via strutting)
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Twain's Rules of Writing
Eighteen simple rules for good fiction writing from one of America’s master storytellers. The best part? They’re gleaned from an essay by Twain excoriating James Fenimore Cooper. Nice.
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”Above all, a well-imagined story is organized around extraordinary human behaviors and unexpected and startling events, which help illuminate the commonplace and the ordinary.
Tim O’Brien describes the essence of storytelling. (via 1st BOOKS)
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”We can’t get good at something solely by reading about it. And we’ll never make giant leaps in any endeavor by treating it like a snack food that we munch on whenever we’re getting bored. You get good at something by doing it repeatedly. And by listening to specific criticism from people who are already good at what you do. And by a dedication to getting better, even when it’s inconvenient and may not involve a handy bulleted list.
Merlin Mann: Real Advice Hurts
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”Writing a page every day gets me more than a novel per year — do the math — and there’s always 20 minutes to be found in a day, no matter what else is going on. Twenty minutes is a short enough interval that it can be claimed from a sleep or meal-break (though this shouldn’t become a habit). The secret is to do it every day, weekends included, to keep the momentum going, and to allow your thoughts to wander to your next day’s page between sessions.
Cory Doctorow’s writing advice from his article Writing in the Age of Distraction. Also important: no research while writing, and ditching the word processor for a plain old text editor.
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”Your intuition knows what it wants to write, so get out of the way.
Ray Bradbury
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Novel Writing
“Whether you choose 60 days, 30 days or 6 months as your goal, all that matters is that you commit to it and implement a schedule that will get you there. Choose a realistic time frame that you can stick to. A little bit every day is better than trying to do too much and then giving up.”
Likes
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this is how I want to camp.
sweethomestyle:Camping (via redmann)
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“These Machines Kill Fascists” designed by You and Me, The Royal We
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ADA ad designed by Jeseok Yi
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where do I get trunks like that??
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Just saw a foursquare check-in to a church. I’m not sure God appreciates other people trying to...
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