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 - the role and definition of talent

The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when
one will do.   - Thomas Jefferson

Talented writing tends to contain more information, sentence for
sentence, clause for clause, than merely good writing...  It also
employs rhetorical parallels and differences...  It pays attention to the
sounds and rhythms of its sentences...  Much of the information it
proffers is implied...  These are among the things that indicate talent.
- Samuel R. Delaney

There is no idea so stupid or hackneyed that a sufficiently-talented
writer can't get a good story out of it.  - Lawrence Watt-Evans

Real seriousness in regard to writing is one of two absolute necessities.
The other, unfortunately, is talent.  - Ernest Hemingway

By Sanna Helena Berger

on writing - psychological barriers

Minds go from intuition to articulation to self-defense, which is what they
die of.    - James Richardson

No surprises for the writer, no surprises for the reader.    - Robert Frost

I think of this sometimes - how sensitivity to the world either means you
get lauded for it, get paid for it, get celebrated and loved for it; or at another
moment, feel burdened by it, or unable to deal, or panicked, or scared, or
shut down.    - Aimee Bender

Begin to write always before the impression of novelty has worn off from
your mind, else you will be apt to think that the peculiarities which at first
attracted you are not worth recording; yet those slight peculiarities are the
very things that make the most vivid impression upon the reader.  Think
nothing too trifling to write down, so it will be in the smallest degree
characteristic.  You will be surprised to find, on re-persuing your journal,
what an importance and graphic power these little particulars assume.
- Nathaniel Hawthorne

By Alessandro Lupi

on writing - walter benjamin

I love this well-worded bit of writing advice from Walter Benjamin:

Let no thought pass incognito, and keep your notebook as strictly as
the authorities keep their register of aliens.

Yes.

a dreamer's wisdom - amelia barr

No disappointment must discourage, and a run back must often
be allowed, in order to take a longer leap forward.

- Amelia Barr

By Eine Der Guten

on writing - lorrie moore

I just read an interview The Paris Review did with Lorrie Moore.
Here are some highlights referencing art, inspiration, writing short
stories versus novels, but the whole thing was great and should be
read in its entirety...  here.

"Certainly bitter emotions can fuel art—all kinds of emotions do. But
one is probably best left assembling a narrative in a state of dispassion;
the passion is, paradoxically, better communicated that way."

"One has to imagine, one has to create (exaggerate, lie, fabricate from
whole cloth and patch together from remnants), or the [story] will not
come alive as art. Of course, what one is interested in writing about
often comes from what one has remarked in one’s immediate world
or what one has experienced oneself or perhaps what one’s friends
have experienced. But one takes these observations, feelings, memories,
anecdotes—whatever—and goes on an imaginative journey with them.
What one hopes to do in that journey is to imagine deeply and well and
thereby somehow both gather and mine the best stuff of the world. A
story is a kind of biopsy of human life. A story is both local, specific,
small, and deep, in a kind of penetrating, layered, and revealing way."

By Adrian Bellesguard

on writing - short stories - william goyen

For what is worth to those who want to write stories or simply to know
something of one writer's insight in the writing of short fiction, I have
felt the short-story form as some vitality, some force that begins (and
not necessarily at the beginning), grows in force, reaches a point beyond
which it cannot go without losing force, loses force and declines; stops.

For me, story telling is a rhythm, a charged movement, a chain of pulses
or meters. To write out of life is to catch, in pace, this pulse that beats
in the material of life. If one misses this rhythm, his story does not seem
to "work"; is mysteriously dead; seems to imitate life but has not joined
life. The story is therefore uninteresting to the reader (and truly to the
writer himself), or not clear. I believe this is a good principle to consider.

- William Goyen, The Collected Stories of William Goyen

on reading - ray bradbury and the paris review

Love this interview The Paris Review did with Ray Bradbury.  Here
are some bits of what he said about writers and what they read:

Do you read your science-fiction contemporaries?

I’ve always believed that you should do very little reading in your
own field once you’re into it. But at the start it’s good to know what
everyone’s doing.

How about writers younger than you?

I prefer not to read the younger writers in the field. Quite often you
can be depressed by discovering they’ve happened onto an idea you
yourself are working on. What you want is simply to get on with
your own work.

You seem to have been open to a variety of influences.

A conglomerate heap of trash, that’s what I am. But it burns with a
high flame.

on writing - advice from ramona ausubel

Two things: As Jim Shepherd says, “Follow your weird.”  Figure out
what fascinates you, what makes the little fizzy feeling in your chest
while you’re writing and do that.  Don’t worry about what you think
you are supposed to do.

And second: spend 99% your time thinking about writing, and 1%
thinking about the business of publishing.  We all know that it’s good
to make connections and network, but all that will come easily if you
have a fully-realized, beautifully executed book or story that’s all
yours, and that sings.  Let’s say writing is an ocean, and finding
readers is air that you need in sips, like a whale.  Your whole life is
spent swimming deep down, and you come up for a moment, take a
breath, and go back. (Via Slice)

- Ramona Ausubel, author of A Guide to Being Born

By Paula Bonet

on reading - on writing - cassandra clare

We live and breathe words.

- Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Prince

By Nidia

on writing - 5 do-nots

Five Things Not To Do When Writing a Book by Brian Klems

1. Do Not Tell Anyone The Plot of Your Book
When you’re writing a book, occasionally someone — like a
family member, friend or that loaded guy sitting next to you at the
bar — will con you into talking about your book while you’re
writing it. Wrong move. They will offer unsolicited pieces of
advice.  Best to stay hush-hush about it until it’s finished and you
can have it edited or work-shopped by other writers.

2. Do Not Get Attached to Any Part of Your Book
As writers, we often fall in love with our own writing and plot
points. This happens to me all the time. I write an awesome first
paragraph and continue writing a chapter. As I go along, it’s clear
that the chapter has taken a decidedly different turn and that first
paragraph doesn’t quite fit. But I love that first paragraph. So I
spend countless hours rewriting the rest of the chapter, even
though deep down I know the only real solution is to cut that first
paragraph.  It’s brutally painful, but not cutting it is a mistake
rookie writers make.

on writing - austin kleon

If you ever find that you're the most talented person in the room,
you need to find another room.

The artist is a collector. Not a hoarder, mind you, there's a
difference: Hoarders collect indiscriminately, artists collect
selectively. They only collect things that they really love.

Creative people need time to just sit around and do nothing.

If you’re worried about giving your secrets away, you can share
your dots without connecting them.

By Francine Van Hove

on writing - the synopsis

A. Howitt recently posted advice on Mythic Scribes about how to
write a great synopsis to go with your stellar query and sample pages.
She gives examples from her own work too.  A synopsis, she says, is
painful to write because it gives away the secrets of our stories, but it
is often necessary, so we must make it as compelling as possible.

1. Make the first sentence count:

Write one long sentence describing your novel.  Perhaps take
something from your query letter that you loved, and ramp it up a bit.
Here’s mine:

From a life of comfort, on the arm of one of Brazelton’s most
powerful men, Raven is cast into a world of shape-shifters and dragons,
when an unexpected letter changes her life forever.

I chose to write about the first plot twist, and set the tone for the rest of
the journey.

2. The tone of the synopsis should convey the tone of the book:

The last thing you want is a synopsis that reads like, “This happened,
then these people went here, and then this happened…” You need to let
the agent know what she’ll be reading, and the best way to do that is to
demonstrate your tone.

By Nicole Sharp

on writing - more advice on first pages

Seven reasons why agents Esmond Harmsworth, Eve Bridburg, and
Janet Silver of the Zachary Shuster Harmsworth agency stopped
reading around the 250-word point:

1. Generic beginnings: Stories that opened with the date or the
weather didn’t really inspire interest. According to Harmsworth, you
are only allowed to start with the weather if you’re writing a book
about meteorologists. Otherwise, pick something more creative.

2. Slow beginnings: Some manuscripts started with too much
pedestrian detail (characters washing dishes, etc) or unnecessary
background information.

By Rose Brigid Ganly

on writing - five bits of advice

Finish each day before you begin the next, and interpose a solid wall
of sleep between the two. This you cannot do without temperance.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Don’t ever write a novel unless it hurts like a hot turd coming out.
- Charles Bukowski

A short story must have single mood and every sentence must build
towards it.  - Edgar Allan Poe

Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.  - T. S. Eliot

Find a subject you care about and which you in your heart feel others
should care about. It is this genuine caring, not your games with
language, which will be the most compelling and seductive element
in your style.
- Kurt Vonnegut

By Alanna Cavanagh

on writing - first pages

Advice on first pages from agent Sarah Heller and author Kim Moritsugu:

1. The purpose of the first page is to engage the reader and thrust them
into the middle of the action.
2. You need to evoke a scene – what are you seeing, hearing, smelling?
Pick a small slice of life and flesh it out through tone and character.
Compel the reader to read more.
3. Set-ups need to lead to pay offs – if you introduce an interesting idea,
finish it.
4. Don’t drown the reader in adjectives. We see this a lot – you do not
have to write this way. Don’t be overly descriptive. Don’t write in ways
that could not happen in life. If your story is magical, that is okay if we
are still getting a sense of what you mean, but some kinds of fanciful
narration interfere with story. Plus, an overuse of adjectives may
indicate that a writer is trying too hard - a sign of being an amateur.

By Laura Alice Watt

on writing - scott fitzgerald gray

Advice to writers from speculative fiction author Scott Fitzgerald Gray.

Most importantly - Don't stop.  Don't ever stop.  Then...

1) Have more than one project on the go.  Always, always, always have
a wide slate of projects in front of you that are in progress or ready to
jump into. Everyone has a first novel, sure. Everyone has the novel they
really want to work on right now. But none of that stops you from
digging into the second novel, or thinking about where you want an
overall series to go, or working on the short story idea that some bit of
research into your current novel inspired.

2) Watch out for the all-consuming projects. You have a novel, a
screenplay, an epic poem that is the Most Important Thing you’ve ever
conceived or will ever work on. But it’s an unfortunately short walk from
the Most Important Thing You’ll Ever Work On to the Only Thing You’ll
Ever Work On Over Fifteen Successive Drafts. And if you’re only working
on one thing, you leave yourself open to stop working on it at some point.

By Felix Girard

on writing success - log lines

I've read before that the log line of your novel should be the first paragraph in
a query (QueryShark says to avoid them).  Some call it a hook, and mean it to
catch the agent's attention, not explain the entire story in one sentence.  Other
times I've read it's best to have in your pocket in case you need to give a verbal
pitch.  Either way, it's important to come up with one for your project.

All log lines should have:

An adjective about the hero.
An adjective about the bad guy.
A goal we can relate to.
A Killer title

Questions to help you into writing the log line:

1. What genre is the book?
2. Who is the main character?
3. What makes her unique?
4. What is the inciting incident?
5. What is your main character’s goal?
6. What is the major conflict your character will face?
7. What is the consequence if the main character fails?

Some famous log lines:

Seventeen year old Bella Swan falls in love with vampire Edward Cullen only
to find out he might want to kill her more than love her.
- TWILIGHT by Stephenie Meyer

Eleven year old famous wizard, Harry Potter, is sent to wizarding school to learn
magic, but ends up solving a mystery over life and death all with the most evil of
wizards, Lord Voldemort, trying to kill him.
- HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER'S STONE by JK Rowling.

Sixteen year old Clary Fray discovers, after her mother's kidnapping, that she
belongs to a world of Shadow Hunters, a nephilum force protecting humans
from downworlders (vampires, werewolves, and faeries).
- CITY OF BONES by Cassandra Clare

An angel, Bethany, is sent to Earth on a mission, but falling in love wasn't part of
the plan.  - HALO by Alexandra Adornetto (Source)

Get brainstorming!

Semi-arbitrary illustration by Ema Trapsa

on writing - c.s. lewis on language

There are no right or wrong answers about language in the sense in which
there are right and wrong answers in Arithmetic. "Good English" is whatever
educated people talk; so that what is good in one place or time would not be
so in another.  Don't take any notice of teachers and textbooks in such matters.
Nor of logic.

Always try to use the language so as to make quite clear what you mean and
make sure your sentence couldn't mean anything else.

In writing. Don't use adjectives which merely tell us how you want us to feel
about the thing you are describing. I mean, instead of telling us a thing was
"terrible," describe it so that we'll be terrified. Don't say it was "delightful";
make us say "delightful" when we've read the description. You see, all those
words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your
readers, "Please will you do my job for me.

Don't use words too big for the subject. Don't say "infinitely" when you mean
"very"; otherwise you'll have no word left when you want to talk about
something really infinite.

Via Letters of Note

By Jeanette Salvesen

on writing - susan sontag

The only story that seems worth writing is a cry, a shot, a scream.  A story
should break the reader’s heart.  The story must strike a nerve — in me.
My heart should start pounding when I hear the first line in my head.
I start trembling at the risk.

One can never be alone enough to write.  To see better.

To be a great writer, know everything about adjectives & punctuation (rhythm),
and have moral intelligence, which creates true authority in a writer.

There is a great deal that either has to be given up or be taken away from
you if you are going to succeed in writing a body of work

The writer does not have to write. She must imagine that she must. A great book:
no one is addressed, it counts as cultural surplus, it comes from the will.

- Susan Sontag

By Sara Wilson