thoughts on writing
I like the idea that, at the end of the day, it’s the reader who generates the book’s meaning as much as the writer, and it’s the writer’s job to start that transaction but not necessarily to finish it.
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Prioritize the whole rather than the parts : when it comes to writing, often we want to share more than would benefit the piece. In my final edits, I often delete factoids and quotations that interest me but detract from my overall message. As I tell my students, good writing is good editing. Take out all the bits that don’t benefit the whole.
3 of Seneca's Metaphors for Taking Notes
“The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.”
—Terry Pratchett
One-thousand or two-thousand words every day for the next twenty years. At the start, you might shoot for one short story a week, fifty-two stories a year, for five years. You will have to write and put away or burn a lot of material before you are comfortable in this medium. You might as well start now and get the necessary work done.
Ray Bradbury • Zen in the Art of Writing
Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
Kurt Vonnegut • Pity the Reader: On Writing with Style
My only ritual for writing is that I do it every morning. I wake up and get to work.
Walter Mosley • This Year You Write Your Novel
Without a first draft, there would be no novel, so this is without a doubt the most important accomplishment of the writer.
Walter Mosley • This Year You Write Your Novel
“Writing is often the process by which you realize you do not understand what you are talking about.”
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People naturally remember musical language, and I would encourage writers to inject their prose with a bit of music. When you’re writing, think about repetition and variety. Crescendos and rests. Pace and punctuation. Read your work out loud, and feel the rhythm of the words in your voice.