Part II: A brief glimpse inside the warped minds of
writers, brought to you by some other writers only these ones are talented and
published. Today's installment = I-Q …
well, almost Q. There were only flowery
prosaic quotes for Q, and I ain't no flowery prose kind of writer. I'm more of a "Bite me" writer. Today I added some advice of my own, too.
Half my life is an act of revision. (John Irving) The other half I spend poking sharpened pencils into my eye because I can't get a scene to work the way I want it to.
Nobody but a blockhead ever wrote except for money. (Samuel Johnson) Of course, I always thought Gumby was the brains of that bunch, but the Blockheads were okay, too.
I get up in the morning, torture a typewriter until it
screams, then stop. (Clarence Budington
Kelland) Wait, that's what I do to my students. Never mind, then.
Poets are interested mostly in death and commas. (Carolyn Kizer) And most poets should die (comma) die (comma) die!
Fiction is about stuff that's screwed up. (Nancy Kress) But memoir is about stuff that's totally fucked up.
We are a species that needs and wants to understand who we
are. Sheep lice do not seem to share this longing, which is one reason why they
write so little. (Anne Lamott) Actually, they write so little because they are sheep lice and they are really, really, really small.
Writing is a fairly lonely business unless you invite people
in to watch you do it, which is often distracting and then have to ask them to
leave. (Marc Lawrence) Or you could write about them, which is better because you can edit out loud as you go and totally piss them off.
That's the essential goal of the writer: you slice out a
piece of yourself and slap it down on the desk in front of you. (Stephen Leigh) I'm slicing off some of my belly fat right now!
Writing is not a genteel profession; it's quite nasty and
tough and kind of dirty. (Rosemary
Mahoney) Unless you're a romance writer. Then it's a little nasty, not tough at all, and extremely dirty.
There are three rules for writing. Unfortunately, no one can
agree what they are. (Somerset Maugham) Sure we can: #1-Start #2-Typing #3-Words
A person who publishes a book willfully appears before the
populace with his pants down. (Edna St.
Vincent Millay) In that case, I hope Hugh Jackman publishes a book really soon.
I can't write five words but that I change seven. (Dorothy Parker) And Dorothy Parker can't do math, either.
There's no such thing as writer's block. That was invented
by people in California who couldn't write.
(Terry Pratchett) People in California can write?! ;-P
