Mac Ford
@fourstoriesup
Mac Ford
Writer George Saunders calls this “achieving the iconic space,” and it’s what he’s after when he meets his creative writing students. “They arrive already wonderful. What we try to do over the next three years is help them achieve what I call their “iconic space” — the place from which they will write the stories only they could write, using what... See more
Brie Wolfson • Notes on “Taste”
I tell my students to liberate a certain part of their mind that, because they are good, humble people they may have likely suppressed, and that's the part that wants to be known, that wants to be famous or rich or whatever. I say that part is not entirely separate from the part of you that wants to be a great writer. Which is not separate from the... See more
Jane Ratcliffe • Craft Advice from George Saunders
From George Saunders, on nuance and embracing complexity:
... See morethe writer doesn't have to have a fixed firm idea, but has to be able to take the reader on a journey to remind her that the world is complicated. From the very beginning, I understood writing to be about some kind of moral or ethical imperative. Absent that, I'm not that interested in it,
Avoid vagueness in descriptors and exposition by using specific, concrete language. If the vision is vague to us, it will be vague to our readers. A storyteller may say that her protagonist “experienced an unpleasant feeling.”
Jared C. Wilson • The Storied Life
of being specific. It is vital to be concrete, to come up with memorable images.
Trish Hall • Writing to Persuade: How to Bring People Over to Your Side
Other elements had the ability to unsettle, however. Long ago, towns had existed here, and we encountered eerie signs of human habitation: rotting cabins with sunken, red-tinged roofs, rusted wagon-wheel spokes half-buried in the dirt, and the barely seen outlines of what used to be enclosures for livestock, now mere ornament for layers of
... See moreJeff VanderMeer • Annihilation: A Novel (The Southern Reach Trilogy)
George Saunders on the revision process: “The way I revise is: I read my own text and imagine a little meter in my head, with “P” on one side (“Positive”) and “N” on the other (“Negative”)... This involves making thousands of what I’ve come to think of as “micro-decisions.” These are instantaneous, intuitive – I just prefer this to that... I just
... See morePatti Smith I was completely green. I had never worked with a producer. If John couldn’t win, he would step back and challenge me. “OK, you want to improvise ‘Birdland’? You want to wing it? Then really do it.” I was not easy to challenge because I was very self-assured. I had more self-assurance than talent, perhaps. When I achieved something, I... See more
50 Years of Patti Smith’s ‘Horses’
patti!!!!!!
- YouTube
youtube.com1900s Abandoned Copper Mine Lost in Time