a dreamer's wisdom - e.m. forster

Adventures do occur, but not punctually. Life rarely gives us what
we want at the moment we consider appropriate.

- E.M. Forster, A Passage to India

By calamari studio

on writing - amy hempel

It's all about the sentences.  It's about the way the sentences move in
the paragraphs.  It's about the rhythm.  It's about the ambiguity.  It's
about the way emotion, in difficult circumstances, gets captured in
language.  It's about instants of consciousness.  It's about besieged
consciousness.  It's about love trouble.  It's about death.  It's about
suicide.  It's about the body.  It's about skepticism.  It's against
sentimentality.  It's about cheap sentiment.  It's about regret.  It's
about survival.  It's about the sentences used to enact and defend
survival.

- Amy Hempel, the intro to The Collected Stories

photo stories - igor termenón

Igor Termenón shoots gritty fashion spreads, which end up looking
like portraits, and therefore, characters.  His work seems like more than
interesting people showing off interesting clothes, but like people with
something to say, a story to move on to, in which they play a major role.

Be inspired.  Onward, writers, storytellers, and dreamers.

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

the well written - louise erdrich

A simple, beautiful sentence:

Our little house yawns, its careful air plays through the walls, and
I'm restless.    - The Antelope Wife by Louise Erdrich

illustration - write me - dilka bear

Dilka Bear doesn't create stories, per se - she creates characters.
Each of these works is a dense drop of someone she's created, ready
for some storyteller to come along and expand.

Dilka Bear says she likes to portray a world without the things that
bind us.  Smiles make her nervous, which is why she doesn't include
them often; they don't often accurately reflect the world.  Have a
look and see if there's a connection between your work and hers...