Sketchbook

Most of what I know about writing I’ve learned through running every day. These are practical, physical lessons. How much can I push myself? How much rest is appropriate – and how much is too much? How far can I take something and still keep it decent and consistent? When does it become narrow-minded and inflexible? How much should I be aware of the world outside, and how much should I focus on my inner world? To what extent should I be confident in my abilities, and when should I start doubting myself? I know that if I hadn’t become a long-distance runner when I became a novelist, my work would have been vastly different. How different? Hard to say. But something would have definitely been different.

“What I Talk About When I Talk About Running” Haruki Murakami

1 day ago -

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Freud said there are no accidents. Or maybe it was Picasso. I think they both said it.

Tom Drury

1 day ago

Photo Credit: Timm Rautert

1 week ago

Es tan corto el amor, y es tan largo el olvido.

Neruda

1 month ago

Also, I mustn’t use jargon. You are surrounded by jargon — in the newspapers, in friends’ conversations — and as a writer, you can become very lazy. You can start using words lazily. I don’t want that to happen. Words are valuable. I like to use them in a valuable way.

V.S. Naipaul

1 month ago

V.S. Naipul: The Art of Fiction

Interviewer: You started writing A House of Mr. Biswas just as your first novel was published.

Naipul: Yes. I was casting around in a desperate way for a subject. It was so despairing that I actually began to write with a pencil — I didn’t feel secure enough.

1 month ago

It is immensely hard to be the first to write about anything. It is always easy afterwards to copy.

V.S. Naipaul

1 month ago

Maya Angelou: The Art of Fiction

Interviewer: What is the best part of writing for you?

Angelou: Well, I could say the end. But when the language lends itself to me, when it comes and submits, when it surrenders and says, I am yours, darling — that’s the best part.

1 month ago -

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I know that one of the great arts that the writer develops is the art of saying, No. No, I’m finished. Bye. And leaving it alone. I will not write it into the ground. I will not write the life out of it. I won’t do that.

Maya Angelou

1 month ago

A writer should concern himself with whatever absorbs his fancy, stirs his heart, and unlimbers his typewriter.

E.B.White

1 month ago