The Wanlorn (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
the_wanlorn) wrote2008-12-20 01:30 pm
the_wanlorn) wrote2008-12-20 01:30 pm
Entry tags:
Bird by Bird, Set One
I have a collection of quotes from Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott that I need to save somewhere, so obviously LJ is the perfect place.
Y HALPO THAT REASON NUMBER ONE I DON'T EVER WRITE STORIES ABOUT MY FAMILY. :D:
I think that this basically sums up NaNo: write a shitton because you'll have to find gems in there.
One of the problems with Gadget Girl and the Zombie Apocalypse right now is that I'm so fucking overwhelmed by how much I have to write and edit. I keep forgetting that all I need to do is take a look through a one inch picture frame and write what I can see through there. After all:
This one I threw in just because I'm so glad I'm not the only one who goes around making up shit like being interviewed and having long involved conversations. In my head. The voices she's referring to are voices going "You suck" and "It's not good enough" and "Eat your beans".
I'm going to end with my favorite two paragraphs on writing that I've read anywhere ever.
That's it for now. :D: Tons more coming later.
Edit: Come to think of it, I think I'll just chuck them all in![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
i_dionysus, the journal I'm using for GYWO.
If your childhood was less than ideal, you may have been raised thinking that if you told the truth about what really went on in your family, a long bony white finger would emerge from a cloud and point at you, while a chilling voice thundered, "We told you not to tell."
~ p. 6
Y HALPO THAT REASON NUMBER ONE I DON'T EVER WRITE STORIES ABOUT MY FAMILY. :D:
And there on page four is a paragraph with all sorts of life in it, smells and sounds and voices and colors and even a moment of dialogue that makes you say to yourself, very, very softly, "Hmmm." [...] you learn what you aren't writing [...]
~ p. 9
I think that this basically sums up NaNo: write a shitton because you'll have to find gems in there.
What's real is that if you do your scales every day, if you slowly try harder and harder pieces, if you listen to great musicians play music you love, you'll get better. [...] But it is fantasy to think that successful writers do not have these bored, defeated hours, these hours of deep insecurity when one feels as small and jumpy as a water bug.
~ p. 14
It reminds me that all I have to do is to write down as much as I can see through a one-inch picture frame.
~ p. 17
One of the problems with Gadget Girl and the Zombie Apocalypse right now is that I'm so fucking overwhelmed by how much I have to write and edit. I keep forgetting that all I need to do is take a look through a one inch picture frame and write what I can see through there. After all:
Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the entire journey that way.
~E.L. Doctrow
[...] shitty first drafts. All good writers write them. This is how they end up with good second drafts and terrific third drafts. [...] I know some very great writers, writers you love who write beautifully and have made a great deal of money, and not one of them sits down routinely feeling wildly enthusiastic and confident. Not one of them writes elegant first drafts.
~ pp. 21-22
We all often feel like we are pulling teeth, even those writers whose prose ends up being the most natural and fluid.
~ p. 22
For me and most of the other writers I know, writing is not rapturous.
~ p. 22
Just get it all down on paper because there may be something great in those six crazy pages that you would never have gotten to by more rational, grown-up means.
~ p. 23
Then on the following Monday I'd sit down at my desk with my notes and try to write the review. Even after I'd been doing this for years, panic would set in. I'd try to write a lead, but instead I'd write a couple of dreadful sentences [...] So I'd start writing without reining myself in. It was almost just typing, just making my fingers move. And the writing would be terrible. I'd write a lead paragraph that was a whole page, even though the entire review could only be three pages long [...] The next day, I'd sit down, go through it all with a colored pen, take out everything I possibly could, find a new lead somewhere on the second page, figure out a kicky place to end it, and then write a second draft.
~ pp. 23-25
Start by getting something -- anything -- down on paper. A friend of mine says that the first draft is the down draft -- you just get it down. The second draft is the up draft -- you fix it up. You try to say what you have to say more accurately. And the third draft is the dental draft, where you check every tooth, to see if it's loose or cramped or decayed, or even, God help us, healthy.
~ pp. 25-26
Quieting these voices is at least half the battle I fight daily. But this is better than it used to be. It used to be 87 percent. Left to its own devices, my mind spends much of its time having conversations with people who aren’t there. I walk along defending myself to people, or exchanging repartee with them, or rationalizing my behavior, or seducing them with gossip, or pretending I’m on their TV talk show or whatever.
~ p. 26
This one I threw in just because I'm so glad I'm not the only one who goes around making up shit like being interviewed and having long involved conversations. In my head. The voices she's referring to are voices going "You suck" and "It's not good enough" and "Eat your beans".
I'm going to end with my favorite two paragraphs on writing that I've read anywhere ever.
Close your eyes and get quiet for a minute, until the chatter starts up. Then isolate one of the voices and imagine the person speaking as a mouse. Pick it up by the tail and drop it into a mason jar. Then isolate another voice, pick it up by the tail, drop it in the jar. And so on. Drop in any high-maintenance parental units, drop in any contractors, lawyers, colleagues, children, anyone who is whining in your head. Then put the lid on, and watch all these mouse people clawing at the glass, jabbering away, trying to make you feel like shit because you won’t do what they want—won’t give them more money, won’t be more successful, won’t see them more often. Then imagine that there is a volume-control button on the bottle. Turn it all the way up for a minute, and listen to the stream of angry, neglected, guiltmongering voices. Then turn it all the way down and watch the frantic mice lunge at the glass, trying to get to you. Leave it down, and get back to your shitty first draft.
A writer friend of mine suggests opening the jar and shooting them all in the head. But I think he's a little angry, and I'm sure nothing like this would ever occur to you.
~ p. 27
That's it for now. :D: Tons more coming later.
Edit: Come to think of it, I think I'll just chuck them all in
i_dionysus, the journal I'm using for GYWO.
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LOLOL OH BB EVERYONE DOES THAT.
Right now when I pretend I'm famous I doodle my own imaginary cd/novel covers and if I'm feeling especially pathetic I add quotes from people who think it's a "triumph!" and "an amazing piece of work" lolol. D: Sometimes I pretend meme would have long threads about what a lovely, stylish, attractive celebrity I am.
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It's from a really cute story about her light though! When her brother was little, he had a HUGE project on birds due and, like the best of us, didn't start until the night before, and was totally overwhelmed by the number of birds he had to do. And he was all paralyzed by the amount of work in front of him, and their dad came up to him and went "Just take it bird by bird, buddy. Bird by bird."
^THIS
Re: ^THIS
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I love the headlights quote. I am snagging that, printing it, and putting it where I can see it.
My favorite quote, that I have pasted beside my computer at work (where of course I can't write, but I can THINK) is this by Martha Graham:
"CREATIVITY"
There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one you in all time, this expression is unique. If you block it, it will never exist through any medium and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is; it is your business to keep it yours, clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your worth. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time; there is only a strange, divine dissatisfaction; a blessed unrest that keeps us marking and makes us more alive than the others.
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I used to have a quote board, where I'd pasted little things to remember. Then, the spouse got sick, I stopped writing. I put it away.
I have so many regrets about that time, and that is one of them. Sigh...your post has convinced me of the merit of remaking that quote board. Little reminders that we are not alone in our solitary endeavor, that others suffer and go through I HATE THIS periods about our work, that it is NOT easy to do this, well--they are important.
Since joining getyourwordsout I feel so less alone! Nuts huh, and we haven't even started yet. LOL.
c, off to see if there are new warm bodies to meet
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I used to have one that was up on my wall, though. That one was awesome.
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My humanities teacher in Junior year of HS had such a crush on her, so in the creative writing class, she would read us excerpts from the book. *___*
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A writer friend of mine suggests opening the jar and shooting them all in the head. But I think he's a little angry, and I'm sure nothing like this would ever occur to you.
This is a great mental image.
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