Anyone could write a novel, given six weeks, pen, paper, and no telephone or wife.
May 3, 2012
Quote of the Day: Evelyn Waugh
April 30, 2012
Quote of the Day: Stephen King
You can approach the act of writing with nervousness, excitement, hopefulness, or even despair - the sense that you can never completely put on the page what’s in your mind and heart. You can come to the act with your fists clenched and your eyes narrowed, ready to kick ass and take down names. You can come to it because you want a girl to marry you or because you want to change the world. Come to it any way but lightly. Let me say it again: you must not come lightly to the blank page.
April 26, 2012
Quote of the Day: Joyce Carol Oates
I am inclined to think that as I grow older I will come to be infatuated with the art of revision, and there may come a time when I will dread giving up a novel at all.
April 24, 2012
7 Screenwriting Paradigms
Dave Herman has written a useful article about some of the most commonly used screenwriting paradigms (e.g. Blake Snyder’s 15 beats, three act structure) and how they can both help and hinder writers. Dave writes:
In a recent episode of the On The Page screenwriting podcast, screenwriter Irving Belateche related how he changed his attitude to what he calls ‘screenwriting paradigms’ and the dramatic improvement this had on his writing. The essence of his story seems to me to encapsulate everything that’s good and bad about screenwriting templates: He discovered that he could write much more freely and creatively if he only started checking for plot points, sequence breaks, act breaks and the like, afterhe’d finished writing the story. He found that too much ‘thinking about the writing’ too soon, detracted from his ability to create.
I don’t believe there are any rules about whether it’s better to check for plot points before, during or after writing an outline or even a first draft. But I think it’s wise to be aware of the essential difference between a creative and an analytical mindset.
read more »
April 24, 2012
Quote of the Day: Dan Vyleta
There’s a lot of tasteful writing out there – nice, tidy, clean – but sometimes it’s excess, rawness and the unpolished that work.
April 23, 2012
Quote of the Day: Rainer Maria Rilke
This before all: ask yourself in the quietest hour of your night: must I write? Dig down into yourself for a deep answer. And if this should be in the affirmative, if you may meet this solemn question with a strong and simple, I must, then build your life according to this necessity.
April 12, 2012
Quote of the Day: Diana Athill
Writing shouldn’t come between the reader and what’s being described. It should be as transparent as possible.
March 28, 2012
Quote of the Day: Anthony Trollope
There is no way of writing well and also of writing easily.
March 22, 2012
Quote of the Day: W.B. Yeats
Out of the quarrel with others we make rhetoric; out of the quarrel with ourselves we make poetry.
