Wednesday Wisdom for Writers and Those Who Love Them

As my artist's statement explains, my work is utterly incomprehensible and is therefore full of deep significance. —Calvin & Hobbs

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Wednesday Wisdom for Writers and Those Who Love Them

"The difference between the almost right word and the right word is the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning." —Mark Twain


One of my favorite tools is THE SYNONYM FINDER. Searching for the right word often leads to a wonderful surprise. Does that ever happen to you?


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Wednesday Wisdom for Writers and Those Who Love Them

This is one of my all-time favorites:

"Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass." —Anton Chekhov


Showing is more difficult to do then telling, but it is much more powerful. And while there is such a thing as too much showing and not enough telling, every writer should work hard to show the glint of light on broken glass to bring the reader into the scene.


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Wednesday Wisdom for Writers and Those Who Love Them

"I write because I'm afraid to say some things out loud." —Gordon Atkinson


I know this has been true for me. It's easier to tell a story that highlights an idea or create a character who isn't afraid of anything, including what other people think.


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Wednesday Wisdom for Writers and Those Who Love Them

"What I like in a good author is not what he says, but what he whispers." —Logan Persall Smith

This is powerful.

This means the author is strong enough to trust the reader to get the subtle implication.

And isn't that the most amazing thing?


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Wednesday Wisdom for Writers and Those Who Love Them

"A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction." —Virginia Woolf

Money to pay the bills and a quiet place to work, that's what I read  here. And while a lot of writers (male and female) need to have day jobs to make this happen, I'm constantly impressed with their commitment to do just that.

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Wednesday Wisdom for Writers and Those Who Love Them

"My language is the common prostitute that I turn into a virgin." —Karl Krause

Here's my take on this concept: taking a cliche and turning into something fresh.

An example:

Cliche: The killer stared coldly at his victim, ice running through his veins.

Fresh: The killer looked at his victim and saw his father standing over him with a switch.

Fresher: The killer felt the rush running through him. It didn't quite take away the pain, but the momentary flush of his memories set him free.

Build on this. What takes a common prostitute of words and turns them into something virginal? It has a little to do with Deep POV, I think.

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Wednesday Wisdom for Writers and Those Who Love Them

"How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live." —Henry David Thoreau


Thoreau's statement put me in mind of one of the most amazing things I've read recently:

"We must always take sides." This could haunt me. Especially when it's appended with "Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim."

When you sit down to write, make sure you've stood up to live. 

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Wednesday Wisdom for Writers and Those Who Love Them

"A critic can only review the book he has read, not the one which the writer wrote." —Mignon McLaughlin

When a writer strings words together, it's sometimes magic and sometimes labor. Everyone one of those words is a personal choice. The book is a personal offering.

A reader comes to a book with his or her own expectations and biases, and they don't always match up to the those of the writer.

One of the easiest things to understand is also one of the most difficult things to believe: Some people aren't going to like my books.

I've learned, by listening to the likes and dislikes of other readers, that our tastes are as varied as the choices of reading material. And that's very cool.

I've also decided, just for the heck of it, that people who don't like my books also don't like chocolate. Or bacon. Or puppies. It helps.

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Wednesday Wisdom for Writers and Those Who Love Them

"What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure." —Samuel Johnson

I'm working on a manuscript that is requiring a lot of effort. I hope in the end I don't give up. I hope in the end, it's the best I can offer. I hope in the end I offer a bit of pleasure.

And by the time this posts, I will have read an amazing manuscript written by Tim Hallinan, who happens to write one of my all-time favorite series—Poke Rafferty. I blogged about one of them here. 

In the past, Tim has freely said that the Poke books are often some of his most difficult books to write. And it's no wonder. They're filled with detail and passion and history and sadness and hope and people who are incredibly real. And still, he sticks things in that make me laugh out loud. 

That ain't easy.

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Wednesday Wisdom for Writers and Those Who Love Them

"Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand." — George Orwell



The thing to me is that there are moments of complete surprise. Even confidence and ecstasy. Without those moments (seconds, perhaps) to experience and then to dream about occuring again, writing would become a drudgery. Many of us who write would be on to the next thing.

But we're not. Because we're hooked.


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Wednesday Wisdom for Writers and Those Who Love Them

This really is one of my favorites... (I'm pretty sure I first discovered this quote from an episode of Criminal Minds)...


"What we hope to do with ease, we must first do with diligence." — Samuel Johnson


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Wednesday Wisdom for Writers and Those Who Love Them

"You only get true perspective of your book when you put it out there for readers." —Peg Brantley


It's all better with friends.

Wednesday Wisdom for Writers and Those Who Love Them

"The first draft of anything is shit." —Ernest Hemingway



Thank you, thank you, thank you.


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Wednesday Wisdom for Writers and Those Who Love Them

Short but sweet (not):

"The road to hell is paved with works-in-progress." — Philip Roth


To avoid this... get 'er done!


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Wednesday Wisdom for Writers and Those Who Love Them

"I'm writing a first draft and reminding myself that I'm simply shoveling sand into the sandbox so that later I can build castles."  — Rachel Stirling



There are days when the sand seems to slip away, so


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Wednesday Wisdom for Writers and Those Who Love Them

"A person who publishes a book willfully appears before the populace with his pants down."
                                                                                   
— Edna St Vincent Millay

Being vulnerable is never the place we seek. It is what it is... and


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Wednesday Wisdom for Writers and Those Who Love Them

I love this one:

"Don't turn away. Keep looking at the bandaged place. That's where the light enters you." — Rumi



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Wednesday Wisdom for Writers and Those Who Love Them

"Being an author is being in charge of your own personal insane asylum." — Terri Guillemets


It's a very strange village, and...


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Wednesday Wisdom for Writers and Those Who Love Them

I especially like this one:


"A synonym is a word you use when you can't spell the other one." — Baltasar Gracián


(Or when you're not sure if it's lay or lie or laid or lain.)



It's all better with friends.