Thoughts on writing from authors born October 18:
from poet and satirical novelist Thomas Love Peacock (The
Monks of St. Mark, Nightmare Abbey, Crotchet Castle) (1785-1866)
I like the immaterial world. I like to live among
thoughts and images of the past and the possible, and even of the impossible,
now and then.
I never failed to convince an audience that the best
thing they could do was to go away.
A book that furnishes no quotations, is me judice, no
book, — it is a plaything.
--
essayist and critic Logan Pearsall Smith (Words and
Idioms) (1865-1946):
People say that life is the thing, but I prefer
reading.
What I like in a good author is not what he says but
what he whispers.
There is one thing that matters, to set a chime of
words tinkling in the minds of a few fastidious people.
The notion of making money by popular work, and then
retiring to do good work, is the most familiar of all the devil's traps for
artists.
The newest books are those that never grow old.
Every author, however modest, keeps a most outrageous
vanity chained like a madman in the padded cell of his breast.
This nice and subtle happiness of reading, this joy
not chilled by age, this polite and unpunished vice, this selfish, serene
life-long intoxication.
--
from short story writer, novelist, and screenwriter
Fannie Hurst (Just Around the Corner, Back Street, Imitation of Life) (1885-1968):
Any writer worth the name is always getting into one
thing or getting out of another thing.
Any work of art ... is great when it makes you feel
that its creator has dipped into your very heart for his sensation.
The grand canyon which yawns between the writer's
concept of what he wants to capture in words and what comes through is a cruel
abyss.
Writing is the loneliest job in the world. There's
always that frustrating chasm to bridge between the concept and the writing of
it. We're a harassed tribe, we writers.
There is no adequate definition for creative writing,
any more than it is possible to describe pain or flavor or color.
I'm not happy when I'm writing, but I'm more unhappy
when I'm not.
But suppose, asks the student of the professor, we
follow all your structural rules for writing, what about that something else
that brings the book alive? What is the formula for that? The formula for that
is not included in the curriculum.
Some authors have what amounts to a metaphysical
approach. They admit to inspiration. Sudden and unaccountable urgencies to
catapult them out of sleep and bed. For myself, I have never awakened to jot
down an idea that was acceptable the following morning.
Crushed to earth and rising again is an author's
gymnastic. Once he fails to struggle to his feet and grab his pen, he will
contemplate a fact he should never permit himself to face: that in all
probability books have been written, are being written, will be written, better
than anything he has done, is doing, or will do.
--
from children’s author Colin Thomson (How to Live
Forever, The Staircase Cat, The Floods series) (b. 1942):
I have always believed in the magic of childhood and
think that if you get your life right that magic should never end. I feel that
if adults cannot enjoy a children’s book properly there is something wrong with
either the book or the adult reading it. This of course, is just a smart way of
saying I don't want to grow up.
--
from noir novelist and screenwriter Barry Gifford (Wild
at Heart, Lost Highway, Perdita Durango) (b. 1946):
The only words worth repeating are from the Old
Testament or Oscar Wilde.
--
from playwright, poet, and novelist Ntozake Shange (For Colored Girls Who Have
Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf) (1948-2018)
I write for young girls of color, for girls who don’t
even exist yet, so that there is something there for them when they arrive. I
can only change how they live, not how they think.
I am gonna write poems til i die and when i have
gotten outta this body i am gonna hang round in the wind and knock over
everybody who got their feet on the ground.
Novels allow me to create a whole world.
I think art is a healing force, and if we give in to
the joy that can be found in art, then we are able to sustain ourselves in
spite of ourselves.
I've still got my characters in my head, and I can
still hear them. When I go to the grocery store, I hear them.
--
from novelist Terry McMillan (Disappearing Acts,
Waiting to Exhale, How Stella Got Her Groove Back) (b. 1951):
Let me put it this way: when I read, I learned the
world was not as small as my house. And that everybody in my home town was not
representative of the way people in the world were raised. And that was what
saved me.
Few writers are willing to admit writing is
autobiographical.
I try to create characters that I am fascinated by on
some level or intrigued by or can't stand.
Write from your heart, and God will take care of the
rest.
I just believe that young people need to be able to
learn how to write in their own voice. Just like a musician, you pride yourself
on having your own distinct sound.
--
from screenwriter-director David Twohy (Warlock,
The Fugitive, Terminal Velocity, Waterworld, G. I. Jane, Riddick franchise,
Below) (b. 1955):
You do a drama, and you are limited by the rules of
reality, and in science fiction, you create your own reality. Some people find
that daunting; I find it challenging.
To come up short when you reach too far is not such a
bad thing rather than not to reach at all, right?
--
from novelist Rick Moody (Garden State, The Ice
Storm, Purple America, The Diviners, Right Livelihoods) (b. 1961):
Nonfiction that uses novelistic devices and strategies
to shape the work. That's material that I really like.
Writing the book was itself a process of concealing
and revealing.
So while it is true that I find really dark stuff
funny sometimes, it's also true that as a writer of books I want to have the
whole range of human emotions.
The point is to balance on the edge between musicality
and content.
Genre is a bookstore problem, not a literary problem.
--
from novelist Amish Tripathi (Shiva Trilogy, Ram
Chandra series, Indic Chronicles) (b. 1974):
As a writer, it's important to stay true to your story
without giving a hoot about publishers, critics and readers. You should do your
karma as an author the way you want to, and rest is up to God.
I believe if you want to convey a complex philosophy,
it's advisable to keep it simple: day-to-day lingo.
--
from novelist and screenwriter Nic Pizzolatto (Galveston,
True Detective) (b. 1975):
We come here to tell stories so that we can manage the
past without being swallowed by it.
We're all born storytellers. It's part of the species.
But, more specifically, I suppose a particular combination of sensitivity and
trauma made me a writer: an essential disquiet with reality, which required
exploration through portrayal.
I don't think you can create effectively toward
expectation. I'm not in the service business.
For me as a storyteller, I want to follow the
characters and the story through what they organically demand.
--
from screenwriter Natasha Rothwell (Saturday Night
Live, Insecure) (b. 1980):
When you're a writer, there is a selflessness that has
to happen; you have to have equity with how you treat each of the characters
and the information you bring into the room.
One of the biggest things I learned was not to tell myself 'no' before someone else. As someone who's creative, I know the inner critic can be really loud. Early on in my career, I would just listen to it and tell myself 'no.'
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