Posts about the craft of writing.
As much as I like it when a book I’m writing speeds along, the downside can be that an author becomes too eager to finish and rushes the end. The end is even more important than the first page, and rushing can damage it.
David Morrell Quotes (Author of Murder as a Fine Art). (2020). Retrieved 24 April 2020, from https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/12535.David_Morrell
Please don’t entertain for a moment the utterly mistaken idea that there is no drudgery in writing. There is a great deal of drudgery in even the most inspired, the most noble, the most distinguished writing. Read what the great ones have said about their jobs; how they never sit down to their work without a sigh of distress and never get up from it witout a sigh of relief. Do you imagine that your Muse is forever flamelike — breathing the inspired word, the wonderful situation, the superb solution into your attentive ear? … Believe me, my poor boy, if you wait for inspiration in our set-up, you’ll wait for ever.
Ngaio Marsh Quotes (Author of A Man Lay Dead). (2020). Retrieved 23 April 2020, from https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/68144.Ngaio_Marsh
Dialogue is a little bit jazz, a little bit hand-to-hand combat.
Chuck Wendig Quotes (Author of Aftermath). (2020). Retrieved 22 April 2020, from https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/17152.Chuck_Wendig
When I write the first draft, it’s hard to know what to get excited about, because it’s hard to get excited about a void. It’s a matter of bringing something out of a muffled little object, something that’s bigger than I imagined.
Spence, E., 2020. An Interview | Wells Tower. [online] The Brooklyn Review. Available at: <http://www.bkreview.org/spring-2016/an-interview-with-wells-tower/> [Accessed 14 April 2020].
I think I’m uptight enough about language that I don’t write really careless drafts with terribly painful prose. That’s because usually, when I’m writing, it’s not the characters I believe in first. It’s the language. The technique winds up being the strength that keeps the whole thing going. I start with terrifically indulgent sentences, and then the characters start to emerge.
Spence, E., 2020. An Interview | Wells Tower. [online] The Brooklyn Review. Available at: <http://www.bkreview.org/spring-2016/an-interview-with-wells-tower/> [Accessed 14 April 2020].
How hideous is the semicolon.
Samuel Beckett Quotes (Author of Waiting for Godot). (2020). Retrieved 13 April 2020, from https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/1433597.Samuel_Beckett
I write five or six days a week, usually a minimum of 2000 words, sometimes more… No matter what, I try to maintain consistency in my work habits. And I’m always trying to improve, to try new things, to write a new story that is better than anything else I’ve written.
Spark, N. (2020). Nicholas Sparks. Retrieved 1 January 2020, from https://nicholassparks.com/for-writers/
