Saturday, June 29, 2013

On Writing

"Something is always born of excess: great art was born of great terrors, great loneliness, great inhibitions, instabilities, and it always balances them.” Anais Nin (from brain pickings)

"My talent is making connections. That's why I'm an essayist." Stephen Jay Gould

"Write until you know what's going to happen next." Ernest Hemingway (from brain pickings)



I do just the opposite, I write until I don't know. Things jumble around in my brain until, at odd moments, I see a piece of a story - often contained in a single phrase - such as:

"You always knew?" the boy asked the man.

I write furiously until that scene is recorded and there is no more. If I force it further, I bore myself.

When do I write? Late at night when the house is quiet and my children asleep. The hours until midnight are deliciously my own.

It is important for me to capture ideas in the instant; I call it my notebook habit. I can feel the ideas there, like wisps; if I do not write them down, they fade as if they never were. I cannot get them back.





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