What writers say
Take what you can of criticism, but stick with your own gut feelings. That’s really, really important. I was discouraged for a long time before I came to that point, where I realized, “Hey, I’m writing for me,” and I didn’t care about [the rest]. I think that’s the most important—especially with all these workshops and all these people telling you ... See more
Adrian Zupp • Lucia Berlin: Writing Advice and More in This Never-Before Published Interview
... See moreWho can say if the thoughts you have in your mind as you read these words are the same thoughts I had in my mind as I typed them? We are different, you and I, and the qualia of our consciousnesses are as divergent as two stars at the ends of the universe.
And yet, whatever has been lost in translation in the long journey of my thoughts through the m
For me, all fiction is about prizing the logic of metaphors - which is the logic of narratives in general - over reality, which is irreducibly random and senseless.
Ken Liu
When I first started to write, I was alone. My first husband had left me, I was homesick, my parents had disowned me because I had married so young and divorced. I just wrote to—to go home. It was like a place to be where I felt I was safe. And so I write to fix a reality.
Adrian Zupp • Lucia Berlin: Writing Advice and More in This Never-Before Published Interview
when you write you want someone to hear it. You do. I mean I don’t write thinking, “Oh Adrian and Kellie are going to love this.” But it’s just that the act of writing comes from a feeling, for me, of connectedness, usually. Or figuring why do I feel at one with this place or with these people or in this job or in this situation. And so just the ac... See more
Adrian Zupp • Lucia Berlin: Writing Advice and More in This Never-Before Published Interview
Steven Pressfield on determination:
"I’ve seen a million writers with talent. It means nothing. You need guts, you need stick-to-it-iveness. It’s work, you gotta work, do the freakin’ work. That’s why you’re gonna make it, son. You work. No one can take that away from you."
"I’ve seen a million writers with talent. It means nothing. You need guts, you need stick-to-it-iveness. It’s work, you gotta work, do the freakin’ work. That’s why you’re gonna make it, son. You work. No one can take that away from you."
Once I write a story, it’s gone, it’s like it’s not mine anymore. And I’m not tempted to edit it or change it.
Adrian Zupp • Lucia Berlin: Writing Advice and More in This Never-Before Published Interview
But I also tell them that sometimes when my writer friends are working, they feel better and more alive than they do at any other time. And sometimes when they are writing well, they feel that they are living up to something. It is as if the right words, the true words, are already inside them, and they just want to help them get out.
Anne Lamott • Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
If you write to please others, you are selling out. You are in the process of audience capture. This way of talking, which is how the fear in me talks, is common—as if writing for an audience and writing for yourself are at odds with each other. I really used to feel like that.
But I no longer think that it is quite right. The relationship between c... See more
But I no longer think that it is quite right. The relationship between c... See more