Writing/Writer Quotes

[kennyc]

"I must chase my own dreams, not dreams of someone else's devising."
- Kenny A. Chaffin

[kennyc]

"Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash."
- Leonard Cohen

[ApK]

Originally Posted by creeon

I like this one by Moliere: Writing is like prostitution. First you do it for love, and then for a few close friends, and then for money. I think that you should always write for yourself, no matter what the trends are. I mean, I will never write a vampire love story although it's very popular right now.

I had no idea Moliere gave an opinion about vampire love stories.

[gmw]

I won't bother to explain why, but I happened to be researching a bit about Joseph Campbell and "A Hero's Journey" - specifically the book where he introduced the idea: "The Hero with a Thousand Faces". In the Wikipedia article for the book I found the following quote from Neil Gaiman:

I think I got about half way through The Hero with a Thousand Faces and found myself thinking if this is true—I don't want to know. I really would rather not know this stuff. I’d rather do it because it's true and because I accidentally wind up creating something that falls into this pattern than be told what the pattern is.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by gmw

I won't bother to explain why, but I happened to be researching a bit about Joseph Campbell and "A Hero's Journey" - specifically the book where he introduced the idea: "The Hero with a Thousand Faces". In the Wikipedia article for the book I found the following quote from Neil Gaiman:

I totally get that point of view. For an artist hoping to come up with creative and original ideas, the thought that you are, even subconsciously, only following a pattern because someone explicitly put the idea in your head, would be disturbing.

On the other hand, I could also make a case for understanding the archetypes (?) that Campbell described and then choosing to use them for effect, or knowingly go against them. Sort of like the tenet of needing to know the rules before you break them. Also, taking Gaiman's idea one step further, wouldn't it be better if he had never read any books or stories in his life?
Why copy other people's ideas of story and structure....? Why stand on the shoulders of giants when you can reinvent every wheel, make all the same mistakes and figure out from scratch all that took humanity centuries to learn....

[gmw]

Originally Posted by ApK

I totally get that point of view. For an artist hoping to come up with creative and original ideas, the thought that you are, even subconsciously, only following a pattern because someone explicitly put the idea in your head, would be disturbing.

On the hand, I could also make a case for understanding the archetypes (?) that Campbell described and then choosing to use them for effect, or knowingly go against them. Sort of like the tenet of needing to know the rules before you break them. Also, taking Gaiman's idea one step further, wouldn't it be better if he had never read any books or stories in his life?
Why copy other people's ideas of story and structure....? Why stand on the shoulders of giants when you can reinvent every wheel, make all the same mistakes and figure out from scratch all that took humanity centuries to learn....

Well, if we're trying to cover all the bases ...

I see it a bit like watching "The making of ..." extras on DVDs etc. If the movie was really good I generally avoid them (at least the first time). I don't want to know.

But I'm interested in writing fantasy because I enjoy reading fantasy, so whether I recognise it or not, there must be some pattern there in fantasy that I am looking to capture. How better to capture it than to understand it.

The risk/difficulty with taking the technical aspects too much to heart is that your story telling may become rote. This can remove the enjoyment of writing, not to mention what it can do to the results.

But some authors do write to very distinct and deliberate patterns, and do it very well. Agatha Christie comes to mind. I love her work, but the majority of the books are very similar (though my favourites come from among the others). Piers Anthony's Xanth series is another example that springs to mind, each almost identical to the last.

For me, Neil Gaiman stands out as one of the most unpredictable writers. There is always something very "Neil Gaiman" about the way he writes, even in his non-fiction writing, but the stories vary greatly. I admire that, even if it means that there are some of his books that I find less accessible than others. So I can see that he might be less of a fan of patterns than many other writers.

[kennyc]

(Happy Birthday Richard Ford!)

"I like the part of being a writer in which you don’t feel the sides of anything. You don’t see the beginning, and you don’t see the end, you’re just in it."
- Richard Ford

[kennyc]

Happy Birthday John Steinbeck!

"The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world. And he must hold to this illusion even when he knows it is not true."
- John Steinbeck

[gmw]

On the Jim Butcher files - Dresden... thread there was a link to this interview. I particularly liked:

I’m not in the writing business to educate. I’m not a great deal smarter than any other given person, and my education has been sound but modest. I doubt I have anything truly profound to say to anyone which hasn’t occurred to them already. I’ll leave that kind of literature to other writers to pursue.
[...]
I want the readers to have fun.
-- Jim Butcher, 2012.

[kennyc]

Good One.

[SigilBear]

"May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds." -- Edward Abbey

Not specifically about writing, but about life in general; but both can be described as journeys.

[kennyc]

(from today's featured poem/poet at Rattle)

“My whole career has been made of words. Lots of them, all prose. One day about a year and a half ago, I signed up for a poetry workshop, because I realized how tired I was of all those words. They couldn’t say what I needed to say. Poetry gives me that freedom. From start to finish (not that any poem is ever finished), writing a poem surprises me. It makes me happy.”
- Wendy Mitman Clarke

http://www.rattle.com/still-life-wit...mitman-clarke/

[charis9]

“Style is to forget all styles.”
Jules Renard

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Happy Birthday John Steinbeck!

"The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world. And he must hold to this illusion even when he knows it is not true."
- John Steinbeck

I heard about this guy!

Didn't he have something to do with a piano company?

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

I heard about this guy!

Didn't he have something to do with a piano company?

Yep!



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