the art of writing

advice from writers, and more on writing

James Baldwin, The Art of Fiction No. 78

Beautiful, on writing

BALDWIN: When you are standing in the pulpit, you must sound as though you know what you’re talking about. When you’re writing, you’re trying to find out something which you don’t know. The whole language of writing for me is finding out what you don’t want to know, what you don’t want to find out. But something forces you to anyway.

When used properly, metaphors enhance speech. But correctly dosing the metaphorical spice in the dish of language is no easy task. They ‘must not be far-fetched, or they will be difficult to grasp, nor obvious, or they will have no effect’, as Aristotle already noted nearly 2,500 years ago.

Benjamin Santos Genta • How changing the metaphors we use can change the way we think | Aeon Essays

Charlie Gedeon

In my experience, there is no such thing as “clerical work” in writing: the donkey work is crucial to the process, as is having to sort through the mess of the draft — that’s the art of self-editing, and it’s the art of finding what you didn’t know you were looking for

alex

The most important advantage of writing is that it helps us confront ourselves when we do not understand something as well as we would like to believe.