They Said It

While pondering my purpose as a writer I came across the quotes below.  Some are curious, others strange, but they are all true.

Enjoy!

"The reason one writes isn't the fact he wants to say something. He writes because he has something to say. "


--F. Scott Fitzgerald

“If you have a story that seems worth telling, and you think you can tell it worthily, then the thing for you to do is to tell it, regardless of whether it has to do with sex, sailors or mounted policemen.”


--Dashiell Hammett

"Genius gives birth, talent delivers."


--Jack Kerouac



“Long patience and application saturated with your heart’s blood—you will either write or you will not—and the only way to find out whether you will or not is to try.”


--Jim Tully



"I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again." 


-- Oscar Wilde

"Coleridge was a drug addict. Poe was an alcoholic. Marlowe was killed by a man whom he was treacherously trying to stab. Pope took money to keep a woman's name out of a satire then wrote a piece so that she could still be recognized anyhow. Chatterton killed himself. Byron was accused of incest. Do you still want to a writer - and if so, why?"


-- Bennett Cerf

"Easy reading is damned hard writing."

--Anonymous

"A writer doesn't solve problems. He allows them to emerge." 


--Friedrich Dürrenmatt

"Half my life is an act of revision."

--John Irving

Literary Fiction is Not Boring, is it?

No. It is not.

Naturally, my answer cannot be anything but.  I read a variety of genres, from suspense to young adult, but literary fiction is the genre I gravitate to most when reading (and writing).

But it is not everyone's favorite.

Literary novels are often perceived as boring and lacking urgency or creativity, as being slow paced and devoid of action.

For me, literary fiction is like good wine - each word should be savored and enjoyed, slowly and deliberately. Let the words come alive and paint a vivid picture, sing to your soul. But it's the middle of July, and heat radiates from every leaf and blade of grass along the lake road, from the tar-papered sides of the lake cottages, from the dust that hands in the air like sheer curtains - Julie Orringer, The Smoothest Way is Full of Stones.


Perhaps it comes down to wrong expectations - they are not page-turners that can be (or should be) browsed through or read in one night -  that defeats their purpose.

Do you enjoy literary fiction?  Why or why not? What is your favorite literary fiction title?

Judging a Book

We have all been told one time or another not to judge a book by its cover.  Naturally, this advice makes good sense, unless you are looking at a cover simply to quickly gauge whether it is a genre you like to read or are willing to experiment with. If I judged by the cover, I would not have picked up The Berlin Boxing Club, for example. And that would have been my loss.

But aside from the cover, when do you decide whether a certain novel is one you want to read or leave on the shelf?

Is it the blurb on the inside jacket?

The first page?

The first paragraph?

Or just the first sentence?

I usually buy my books in a physical bookstore - there is something about being in the presence of so many works that simply cannot be had by clicking "add to basket" or "checkout."  I will select books randomly, regardless of cover.  I skip the blurb and go straight to the first page.

If I am hooked, I am hooked after the first sentence.  ("The year was 1937; the month was September, the evening unseasonably cold.") If I am not fully satisfied, I will read the rest of the paragraph and, most often, the rest of the page.  If the story and I do not connect after that first page, chances are we won't and the book is going back onto the shelf.  Style and theme, in my opinion, do come across almost right away.

How do you judge a book?

What is a Name to a Character?

And how important is the name we chose for our characters?

After all, we all have a name.  It may be short (Brad Pitt) or long (Ernest Hemingway), traditional (James Patterson) or "trendy" (Taylor Lautner).  Some names rhyme (Jack Black) while others appear to be more random (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart). Some of us like our names while others may be less pleased.

Names often awaken associations - when we hear a name, most of us will, for at least a split second, think of a family member, friend, coworker, or just an obnoxious acquaintance we know by that name and may transpose that person's traits onto the fictional character.

Certain names may also be unfairly imbued with personality traits - a Michael or Joseph, at least initially, is more likely to be viewed as conservative or boring whereas a Ty or a Zak may be thought of as hip and young.

And then there are the names that carry unavoidable stereotypes - think Judas or Adolph.

The name we give our character also depends on the period our story is set in (how many Berthas or Helgas have you met lately?) and the country it takes place in (actually, if you were just in Germany, you may have run into quite a few Helgas).

With all that, naming my characters has been a bit of a challenge.  I am happy with my main character's name and those I chose for his immediate family members (I stuck with the names I gave them before I started writing), but I am still struggling with the names I gave to the secondary characters.

How do you go about naming your characters?  Do you know what name you will give them before you even start? Or do you simply google the yellow pages?

Is Writing Sort of Like Baking A Cake?

Inspiration is essential to creating a well-written, captivating story. It can come from anywhere - an old, black & white photograph, a stranger on the street, a song, or an inexplicable feeling - and it often strikes when we least expect it (at least for me).

But is our capacity to be inspired really arbitrary or can we create an environment that invites and fosters creativity and fuels our imagination?

I used to believe that ideas would come randomly and I would simply have to accept their capriciousness. But as I often struggled with the ability to utilize that magical time and place when everything came together, I had to experiment and I finally realized that I could attract inspiration by putting together a bowl of carefully selected and measured ingredients - absolute silence, complete solitude, at least one hour of free time, and my MacBook Pro.  I mix, add the right amount of inspiration, and voilà!

How do you make it work?

My Favorite Part of Writing - and The Most Frustrating

I have been hard at work revising and editing what I hope is the last iteration of my work in progress. I admit, after a few hours each night, exhausted and "overcaffeinated," I almost feel like I have had enough and I am just a hair from looking at writing (or, rather, revising) as a chore.

But when I read what I revised and see how much better it is in terms of structure and depth, the frustrations sort of melt away. Thus, my least favorite and most frustrating part of writing is revisions (or, most specifically, the final revision).

Starting a new work used to be my least favorite - that first sentence became an obsession and had to be perfect.  Once it was "done," as if the dam had broken and it all came flowing.

And now, that first sentence of a new work is one of my favorite parts.  I love to agonize over it, looking for the right balance of words, creating the right first impression.  It's fun, exciting, challenging.  Just writing a whole new work is like opening up a new world.  Love it.

How about you?  What is your favorite part (or least favorite part) of writing?

It's Quite (P)interesting!

Do you ever feel like there are just too many social media content and applications to utilize and keep up with?  Social networking sites like Facebook, professional networking sites like LinkedIn, and microblogs like Twitter, are joined by internet forums, podcasts, videocasts and so on.  And then we have our "regular" blogs.

I try to make it easy - I blog, and that is it.

Or, rather, that was it until I met Pinterest.

Reluctant at first to even look at another outlet, I finally gave it a try and now I am hooked!  Of course, pinning is a lot less challenging and faster than crafting a meaningful blog entry or participating in a (sometimes heated) forum discussion, but still it is another chunk of time away from the other activities and sleep.

Pinterest is unique in that it allows you to focus on various interests at the same time - pinning book covers to photos to house photos and much more.  I am having excessive amounts of fun pinning book covers...

Have you checked it out yet?  What do you think?