“Godot says, ‘Running late, frowny face, winky face.’”
“I’m starting to wonder if my story is ever going to be uplifting.”
“Literature is a tone. It is a melody. If I find the melody of the book, the book is written. I remember The Town Beyond the Wall: I wrote one page—I remember exactly what time it was—I wrote one page and I knew the book was finished. I didn’t know what I was going to say—I never do—but I knew the book was done, or waiting to be done.” Elie Wiesel
“’Thank you for sending us your manuscript,’ she exclaimed. ‘You’re welcome,’ I retorted. ‘Unfortunately, it’s not what we are looking for,’ she opined. ‘How disappointing,’ I remarked.”
“Don’t try to figure out what other people want to hear from you. Figure out what you have to say. It’s the one and only thing you have to offer.” Barbara Kingsolver
“There is no sense in writing anything you don’t feel.” Brenda Euland
“This is the barn where we keep our feelings. If a feeling comes to you, bring it out here and lock it up.”
“You don’t have to do the quotes every time, Brian, we know you’re not Shakespeare.”
“Writing is not a performance, rather a generosity.” Brenda Ueland
“The first draft of anything is sh**.” Ernest Hemingway
“I force myself to write. And often what I write is not good. I destroy it. Very, very often. But sometimes in the middle of writing, suddenly I feel it is there. Words are burning. Then I know it’s good. But at times I can rewrite a page ten times without changing a word. I feel I have to do something. And I write and write and write.” Elie Wiesel
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. is one of my favorite writers. In a career spanning more than fifty years, he published fourteen novels, three short story collections, five plays, and five works of non-fiction. He is most famous for Slaughterhouse-Five, which is rated #18 on the NY Times top 100 books of all times and for his saying "And so it goes." I thought you might enjoy this short (4 1/2 minutes) video of him talking about “The Shape of Stories.” CLICK
“I am my words.” Bob Dylan
