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Kingsley Amis (b. Apr 16): “If you can’t annoy somebody, there’s little point in writing.”

16 Apr

(c) Gordon Stuart; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

Kingsley Amis (born 16 April 1922, died 22 October 1995) was an English novelist, poet, critic, and teacher. He wrote more than 20 novels, six volumes of poetry, a memoir, various short stories, radio and television scripts, and social and literary criticism. He was the father of English novelist Martin Amis.

Quotes:

  1. If you can’t annoy somebody, there’s little point in writing.
  2. No wonder people are so horrible when they start life as children.
  3. The novelist always has favorites, and often he’s a minor character.
  4. Laziness has become the chief characteristic of journalism, displacing incompetence.
  5. It is natural and harmless in English to use a preposition to end a sentence with.
  6. Writing for me is to a large extent self-entertainment, and an only child is driven to do that.
  7. No writer, especially a young and unknown writer, resents publicity of any kind – whatever he may say.
  8. You can’t imagine how much I miss the intellectual stimulus of teaching English literature to young people. More than I ever realized – I do miss it.
  9. I don’t get up very early. I linger over breakfast reading the papers, telling myself hypocritically that I’ve got to keep up with what’s going on, but really staving off the dreadful time when I have to go to the typewriter. Then I go on until about eight-thirty PM and I always hate stopping.
  10. I’ve been trying to write for as long as I can remember. But those first 15 years didn’t produce much of great interest. I mean, it embarrasses me very much to look back on my early poems – very few lines of any merit at all and lots of affectation. But there were quite a lot of them. That’s a point in one’s favor.

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Jeffrey Archer (b. Apr 15): “There’s no substitute for reading great novelists.”

15 Apr
archer

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Jeffrey Archer, born 15 April 1940, is an English author and former politician. His books, starting with Kane and Abel, have sold at least 250 million copies worldwide.

Jeffrey Archer’s top 10 writing tips:

  1. Make time. “Decide when you’re going to write. Don’t be casual and only do it as and when it suits you. Don’t think you can write a novel after you’ve done a hard day’s work, it’s insulting to those professional novelists who spend their time doing nothing else.” 
  2. Be disciplined. “For example, I write from 6-8am, 10-12am, 2-4pm, 6-8pm. I keep that routine up for 40-50 days and handwrite every word. I then take a break and go back to it again a month later.” 
  3. Write what you know. “Don’t do vampires, wizards or ghosts because they’re in fashion. Jane Austen wrote about family life in a small village and gave us six of the greatest novels ever written.” 
  4. Get some fresh air. “I go for two long walks between sessions, for two reasons, physical and mental. The plot will buzz around in your mind while you are walking, continually churning over, which it can’t be while you’re actually writing.” 
  5. Do several drafts. “Do not imagine that the first draft of your book is the one that will be published. My latest novel, The Sins of the Father, was 14 drafts and took approximately 1000 hours.” 
  6. Be flexible. “If you think of something better half-way through the writing process, don’t be frightened to go back and incorporate it or even change the story completely.” 
  7. Seek opinions from professionals. “When you want an opinion on what you consider the finished script, seek it from a professional editor, an agent or someone you don’t know, through a third party. Do not seek an opinion from your wife, husband, partner, mistress or close friend. They will lie.” 
  8. Read the greats. “There is no substitute for reading great novelists, and instead of just enjoying their craft, think carefully about how they’ve achieved it. Do they spend pages on description, do they move the story on quickly, how do they make you turn the page? It’s all there in front of you if you look carefully, so at least when you try to do it, you have analysed how successful authors have managed it in the past.” 
  9. Stay fit. “If the body is a physical wreck – too much drinking, smoking, late nights – how can you expect the written word to be anything less than drunken, useless and tired?” 
  10. Don’t give up. “My first novel, Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less, was turned down by 14 publishers, ended up with an advance of £3,000 and on first printing took a year to sell 3,000 copies. It is still extremely rare for a first book to be a best-seller.”

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Eudora Welty (b. Apr 13): “If you haven’t surprised yourself, you haven’t written.”

13 Apr

welty

Eudora Welty (born 13 April 1909, died 23 July 2001) was an American author of short stories and novels about the American South. Her novel The Optimist’s Daughter won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973.

Quotes:

  1. Human life is fiction’s only theme.
  2. If you haven’t surprised yourself, you haven’t written.
  3. A good snapshot keeps a moment from running away.
  4. It doesn’t matter if it takes a long time getting there; the point is to have a destination.
  5. Learning to write may be part of learning to read. For all I know, writing comes out of a superior devotion to reading.
  6. I’m a writer who came from a sheltered life. A sheltered life can be a daring life as well. For all serious daring starts from within.
  7. Writing a story or a novel is one way of discovering sequence in experience, of stumbling upon cause and effect in the happenings of a writer’s own life.
  8. It had been startling and disappointing to me to find out that story books had been written by people, that books were not natural wonders, coming up of themselves like grass. 
  9. Gardening is akin to writing stories. No experience could have taught me more about grief or flowers, about achieving survival by going, your fingers in the ground, the limit of physical exhaustion.
  10. Long before I wrote stories, I listened for stories. Listening for them is something more acute than listening to them. I suppose it’s an early form of participation in what goes on. Listening children know stories are there. When their elders sit and begin, children are just waiting and hoping for one to come out, like a mouse from its hole.

 

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Samuel Beckett (b. Apr 13): “I was waiting for Godot…”

13 Apr

samuel_beckettHappy birthday, Mr. Beckett!

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Tom Clancy (b. Apr 12): “The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.”

12 Apr
Clancy1

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Tom Clancy (born 12 April 1947, died 1 October 2013) was an American author known for his espionage, military and techno thrillers. Clancy’s breakthrough novel was The Hunt for Red October. Ten of Clancy’s books reached #1 on the New York Times best-seller list. More than 50 million copies of his books have been sold, and three made into films.

Top Tom Clancy quotes:

  1. Collaboration on a book is the ultimate unnatural act.
  2. The only way to do all the things you’d like to do is to read.
  3. The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.
  4. Books and movies are different art forms with different rules. And because of that, they never translate exactly.
  5. Success is a finished book, a stack of pages each filled with words. If you reach that point, you have won a victory over yourself no less impressive than sailing single-handed around the world.
  6. Nothing is as real as a dream. The world can change around you, but your dream will not. Responsibilities need not erase it. Duties need not obscure it. Because the dream is within you, no one can take it away.
  7. I think about the characters I’ve created and then I sit down and start typing and see what they will do. There’s a lot of subconscious thought that goes on. It amazes me to find out, a few chapters later, why I put someone in a certain place when I did. It’s spooky.
  8. Two questions form the foundation of all novels: “What if?” and “What next?” (A third question, “What now?”, is one the author asks himself every 10 minutes or so; but it’s more a cry than a question.) Every novel begins with the speculative question, What if “X” happened? That’s how you start.

 

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Word cloud: SCORPIO RISING

4 Apr

ScorpioRising1“If you like thrillers and detective stories, this one is a terrific read. It’s fast-paced and has plenty of twists and turns – as well as enough astrology and palmistry – to keep you flipping the pages.” ~ NCGR newsletter

Available at Amazon, Apple, Barnes&Noble, Kobo and Smashwords.

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Sean O’Casey (b. Mar 30): “Money doesn’t make you happy but it quiets the nerves.”

30 Mar

ocasey

Seán O’Casey (born 30 March 1880, died 18 September 1964) was an Irish dramatist and memoirist who wrote about life in the slums of Dublin in plays like The Shadow of a Gunman and The Plough and the Stars.

Quotes:

  1. Money doesn’t make you happy but it quiets the nerves.
  2. When it was dark, you always carried the sun in your hand for me.
  3. All the world’s a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed.
  4. Politics has slain its thousands, but religion has slain its ten thousands.
  5. Every action of our lives touches on some chord that will vibrate in eternity.
  6. Laughter is wine for the soul – laughter soft, or loud and deep, tinged through with seriousness – the hilarious declaration made by man that life is worth living.
  7. You can’t put a rope around the neck of an idea. You can’t put an idea up against the barrack-square wall and riddle it with bullets. You can’t confine it in the strongest prison cell your slaves could ever build.

 

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Mystery cloud: HIDE IN PLAIN SIGHT

22 Mar

hips180315HIDE IN PLAIN SIGHT, mystery-thriller by ALAN ANNAND: A man assumes his twin brother’s identity in order to alibi his own wife who’s accidentally killed his brother in an argument. But when he finds himself sharing a bed with his beautiful sister-in-law, he faces bigger challenges and harder choices.

4.5-star rating on Amazon. Available in ebook form for only $0.99 or its equivalent via Amazon, Apple, Barnes&Noble, Flipkart, Kobo and Smashwords.

~~~~~~~~~

???????????????????????????????Alan Annand is a graduate of the American College of Vedic Astrology and the British Faculty of Astrological Studies. He’s both a practicing astrologer and a crime novelist. His NEW AGE NOIR series (Scorpio Rising, Felonious Monk, Soma County) features astrologer Axel Crowe, whom one reviewer dubbed “Sherlock Holmes with a horoscope.”

Websites: www.navamsa.com, www.sextile.com

 

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Lauren Kate (b. Mar 21): “See the entire world as your muse.”

21 Mar

KateLauren Kate, born 21 March 1981, is an international best-selling author of young adult fiction. Her seven books have been translated into more than 30 languages.

Four quotes on writing:

  1. Be fearless. Be glib. Be enigmatic. Read everything you can. Always finish your stories. Find a writing friend who can give you comments and help you get perspective.
  2. I surprised myself by meticulously plotting out Fallen before I wrote it. Character descriptions, paragraph-long synopses for each chapter, “big” endings, the whole deal.
  3. I majored in creative writing in college, and went on to get a masters degree in fiction — but I don’t think those things are necessary to being a good writer. Practice, curiosity, voracious reading, and diligence are more important than any degree.
  4. Live your life as a curious person. Try to see the entire world as your muse. Ask questions. Dismiss nothing. Eavesdrop. Always eavesdrop. You’ll have more fun, learn all the time, and when the time comes to sit down and write, you’ll have a whole line-up of stories just waiting to be told.

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Richard Condon (b. Mar 18): “Writers are too self-centered to be lonely.”

18 Mar
condon

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Richard Condon (born 18 March 1915, died 9 April 1996) was a prolific and popular American political novelist whose satiric works were generally presented in the form of thrillers or semi-thrillers, including Prizzi’s Honor and The Manchurian Candidate.

Five quotes on writing:

  1. Writers are too self-centered to be lonely.
  2. I’m a man of the marketplace as well as an artist. I’m a pawnbroker of myth.
  3. Amateur psychiatric prognosis can be fascinating when there’s absolutely nothing else to do.
  4. I think the most important part of storytelling is tension. It’s the constant tension of suspense that in a sense mirrors life, because nobody knows what’s going to happen three hours from now.
  5. Although the paranoiacs make the great leaders, it’s the resenters who make their best instruments because the resenters, those men with cancer of the psyche, make the great assassins.

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