on writing - some thoughts on adjectives

The adjective is the enemy of the noun.   - Voltaire

The adjective is the banana peel of the parts of speech.
– Clifton Fadiman 

When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don’t mean utterly, but
kill most of them — then the rest will be valuable. They weaken
when close together. They give strength when they are wide apart.
- Mark Twain

I think my mistakes were kind of common - leaning on cliches and
adjectives in the place of clear, vivid writing. But at least I knew
how to spell, which seems to be a rarity these days.
- Dick Schaap   

By Francois

on writing... difficulty

I am irritated by my own writing. I am like a violinist whose ear
is true, but whose fingers refuse to reproduce precisely the sound
he hears within.  - Gustave Flaubert

Writing is not a genteel profession. It's quite nasty and tough and
kind of dirty.  - Rosemary Mahoney

A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is
for other people.  - Thomas Mann

From Becoming Jane

on writing - author anecdotes

These are always to fun to read - the small beginnings to great ends.

1. The Hobbit:
J.R.R. TOLKIEN was grading college exam papers, and midway through
the stack he came across a gloriously blank sheet. Tolkien wrote down the
first thing that randomly popped into his mind: “In a hole in the ground there
lived a hobbit.” He had no idea what a hobbit was or why it lived
underground, and so he set out to solve the mystery.

2. Treasure Island:
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON painted a map to pass the time during a
dreary vacation in the Scottish Highlands. When he stepped back to admire his
handiwork, a cast of imaginary pirates appeared. Stevenson recalled, “They
passed to and fro, fighting and hunting treasure, on these few square inches of a
flat projection.” He promptly traded his paintbrush for a quill and began to write.

3. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz:
L. FRANK BAUM was telling his sons a story when he abruptly stopped.
He’d been swept away to a land unlike any his imagination had ever conjured.
Baum ushered the young audience into another room and, page by page, began
to document Dorothy’s journey along the yellow brick road.

By Neily

on writing - george orwell

George Orwell's 4 motivations to write:

1.  Sheer egoism. Desire to seem clever, to be talked about, to be
remembered after death, to get your own back on the grown-ups
who snubbed you in childhood, etc., etc. It is humbug to pretend
this is not a motive, and a strong one. Writers share this
characteristic with scientists, artists, politicians, lawyers, soldiers,
successful businessmen — in short, with the whole top crust of
humanity.

2.  Aesthetic enthusiasm. Perception of beauty in the external
world, or, on the other hand, in words and their right arrangement.
Pleasure in the impact of one sound on another, in the firmness of
good prose or the rhythm of a good story.  The aesthetic motive is
very feeble in a lot of writers.

3.  Historical impulse. Desire to see things as they are, to find out
true facts and store them up for the use of posterity.

4.  Political purpose. Using the word ‘political’ in the widest
possible sense.  Desire to push the world in a certain direction, to
alter other peoples’ idea of the kind of society that they should
strive after. No book is genuinely free from political bias.

Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout
of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing
if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither
resist nor understand. It can be seen how these various impulses
must war against one another, and how they must fluctuate from
person to person and from time to time. (Source)

By David Rees