“The act of writing requires a constant plunging back into the shadow of the past where time hovers ghostlike.”
~ Ralph Ellison, b. 1 March 1914
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Javier Bardem (b. March 1st): “I don’t see this heart-throb thing.”
1 Mar
“Really, I don’t see this heart-throb thing at all.”
~ Javier Bardem, b. 1 March 1969
Elizabeth George (b. February 26): “I have to know the killer…”
26 Feb
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Elizabeth George, born 26 February 1949, is an American author of mystery novels set in Great Britain. 11 of her novels have been adapted for television by the BBC as The Inspector Lynley Mysteries.
Quotes on writing:
- It is the job of the novelist to touch the reader.
- I wish that I’d known back then that a mastery of process would lead to a product. Then I probably wouldn’t have found it so frightening to write.
- I find it both fascinating and disconcerting when I discover yet another person who believes that writing can’t be taught. Frankly, I don’t understand this point of view.
- I have to know the killer, the victim and the motive when I begin. Then I start to create the characters and see how the novel takes shape based on what these people are like.
- Essentially and most simply put, plot is what the characters do to deal with the situation they’re in. It’s a logical sequence of events that grow from an initial incident that alters the status quo of the characters.
- Plotting is difficult for me, and always has been. I do that before I actually start writing, but I always do characters, and the arc of the story, first… You can’t do anything without a story arc. Where is it going to begin, where will it end.
- Lots of people want to have written; they don’t want to write. In other words, they want to see their name on the front cover of a book and their grinning picture on the back. But this is what comes at the end of a job, not at the beginning.
Chelsea Handler (b. February 25): “I didn’t become a comedian to work this hard.”
25 Feb
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“I didn’t become a comedian to work this hard.”
~ Chelsea Handler, b. 25 February 1975
Johnny Winter (b. February 23): “People need the blues.”
23 Feb
“I think the blues will always be around. People need it.”
~ Johnny Winter, b. 23 February 1944
Richard North Patterson (b. February 22): “There’s a wonderful freedom to being a novelist.”
22 Feb
Richard North Patterson, born 22 February 1947, is an American best-selling fiction writer of 22 novels. Before he wrote full time, he studied creative writing at the University of Alabama. He was also a lawyer. He served as Ohio’s Assistant Attorney General, a Watergate prosecutor, and as an attorney for the Securities and Exchange Commission. His first novel, The Lasko Tangent, won an Edgar Allen Poe Award in 1979.
10 quotes on writing:
- The business of writing is empathizing with situations that aren’t your own.
- Writing seems like the only job where what you think and feel really matters.
- I was 29 when I wrote my first novel. But I was 45 when I quit for good. I was a 16-year overnight success.
- There is a wonderful freedom to being a novelist – it’s self-assigned work. For someone who’s curious by nature, it’s a perfect job.
- The manuscript you submit [should not] contain any flaws that you can identify – it is up to the writer to do the work, rather than counting on some stranger in Manhattan to do it for him.
- Writing is re-writing. A writer must learn to deepen characters, trim writing, intensify scenes. To fall in love with the first draft where one cannot change it is to greatly enhance the prospect of never publishing.
- Trial lawyers have to be story tellers. They have to arrange complex facts in attractive narratives; grasp character; understand judges, juries, make clients appealing, understandable. They do have a lot of stories to tell – vivid and interesting things to talk about.
- Write what you care about and understand. Writers should never try to outguess the marketplace in search of a saleable idea; the simple truth is that all good books will eventually find a publisher if the writer tries hard enough, and a central secret to writing a good book is to write one that people like you will enjoy.
- Monday through Friday, I get up at five, read The New York Times and begin writing by seven. I work with an outline of the chapter or scenes from each day and typically finish with original writing by noon. Throughout the afternoon my assistant and I work the draft over until it’s as good as it can be. Typically we’re not happy until late afternoon.
- The writer must always leave room for the characters to grow and change. If you move your characters from plot point to plot point, like painting by the numbers, they often remain stick figures. They will never take on a life of their own. The most exciting thing is when you find a character doing something surprising or unplanned. Like a character saying to me: “Hey, Richard, you may think I work for you, but I don’t. I’m my own person.”
Anais Nin (b. February 21): “If you don’t cry out or sing, then don’t write.”
21 Feb
“If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don’t write, because our culture has no use for it.”
~ Anais Nin, b. 21 February 1903
Toni Morrison (b. February 18): “The ability of writers to imagine what is not the self… is the test of their power.”
18 Feb
“The ability of writers to imagine what is not the self, to familiarize the strange and mystify the familiar, is the test of their power.”
~ Toni Morrison, b. 18 February 1931
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Michael Jordan (b. February 17): “The game is my wife…”
17 Feb
“The game is my wife. It demands loyalty and responsibility, and it gives me back fulfillment and peace.”
~ Michael Jordan, b. 17 February 1963
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Ice-T (b. February 16): “Everybody wants to redeem themselves…”
16 Feb
“I think everybody wants to redeem themselves after they’ve done something that might be considered negative. I don’t think anyone wants to go to the grave negative.”
~ Ice T, b. 16 February 1958
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