on writing - the rarer wisdoms

Bring all your intelligence to bear on your beginning.
- Elizabeth Bowen

One of the things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it,
all, right away, every time.  Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the
book or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now.  The impulse to save
something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now.  Something
more will arise for later, something better.  These things fill from behind, from
beneath, like well water.  Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have
learned is not only shameful, it is destructive.  Anything you do not give freely and
abundantly becomes lost to you.  You open your safe and find ashes.
- Annie Dillard

By Jen Corace

on writing - editing

Bits of encouragement for those presently editing stories short and long:

It is perfectly okay to write garbage—as long as you edit brilliantly.
- C. J. Cherryh

Put down everything that comes into your head and then you're a writer.
But an author is one who can judge his own stuff's worth, without pity,
and destroy most of it.   - Colette

So the writer who breeds more words than he needs, is making a chore
for the reader who reads.   - Dr. Seuss

By Elena Hormiga

on writing success - 9 tips from elmore leonard

1 Never open a book with weather. If it's only to create atmosphere, and not a
character's reaction to the weather, you don't want to go on too long.

2 Avoid prologues: A prologue in a novel is backstory, and you can drop it in
anywhere you want.

3 Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue. The line of dialogue
belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking his nose in. But "said"
is far less intrusive than "grumbled", "gasped", "cautioned", "lied".  I once
noticed Mary McCarthy ending a line of dialogue with "she asseverated" and
had to stop reading and go to the dictionary.

4 Never use an adverb to modify the verb "said" ... he admonished gravely.
To use an adverb this way (or almost any way) is a mortal sin. The writer is
now exposing himself in earnest, using a word that distracts and can interrupt
the rhythm of the exchange.

5 Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more
than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.

6 Never use the words "suddenly" or "all hell broke loose". This rule doesn't
require an explanation. I have noticed that writers who use "suddenly" tend to
exercise less control in the application of exclamation points.

7 Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.

8 Avoid detailed descriptions of characters. In Ernest Hemingway's "Hills
Like White Elephants", what do the "American and the girl with him" look like?
"She had taken off her hat and put it on the table." That's the only reference to
a physical description in the story.

9 Don't go into great detail describing places and things, unless you're Margaret
Atwood and can paint scenes with language. You don't want descriptions that
bring the action, the flow of the story, to a standstill.

Via Elmore Leonard & The Guardian

By Irene Dimdi