Determination Writes the Novel

While research writes the paper and emotions write the poetry, determination writes the novel.

- S.R. Lundin


© 2009 Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Great Sentences

Many write great stories. Few write great sentences.

   - S.R. Lundin


© 2009 Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

The Best Writing

Writer's Reality: Your best writing is yet to come.
                - S.R. Lundin

© 2009 Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Architecture of Movies

"Prose is architecture, not interior decoration."
- Ernest Hemingway

Screenplays are the architecture of movies.


© 2009 Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Know and Feel

"It's better to write about things you feel than about things you know about."
- L. P. Hartley

Know what you feel, feel what you know, and write who you are.


© 2009 Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Sincere Plagiarism

"Observe, don't imitate."
- John M. Ford

Imitation is sincere plagiarism, like borrowing is sincere stealing.


© 2009 Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Transgendered Words Plus Some

"I never knew what was meant by choice of words. It was one word or none."

        - Robert Frost

The fashion today is to dress nouns as verbs, verbs as adjectives, adjectives as nouns, and so on. Right words do exist, but they are no longer gender-specific. "[O]ne word or none?" Today, its transgendered words plus some. If you can think it you can use it.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Objective Confusion

"Objective journalism and an opinion column are about as similar as the Bible and Playboy magazine."
          - Walter Cronkite

I'm confused: Is objective journalism similar to the Bible or to Playboy magazine? I thought objective journalism was cliché for oxymoron. Go figure.



© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Pantings of Your Fingers

"Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart..."

- William Wordsworth

Fill your life with the pantings of your fingers.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Why Write

“There are many reasons why novelists write – but they all have one thing in common: a need to create an alternative world.”

                            - John Fowles

I have trouble with writing quotations when powerful beginnings are followed by weak opinions -- opinions I do not, cannot, and will not share. Is it true? Is “a need to create an alternative world” the “in common” reason novelists write? Really?

"[T]he need to create an alternative world” is more consequence than reason. Novelists write because they love writing. Now there is a reason!

© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Mastery

"Few men make themselves masters of the things they write or speak."
- Tirso de Molina

Masters do not write today and not tomorrow. They commit their lives to "mak[ing] themselves masters." Passion and commitment are just fundamentals. Discipline is their high truth.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Fired by Reading

“Reading usually precedes writing and the impulse to write is almost always fired by reading. Reading, the love of reading, is what makes you dream of becoming a writer.”
- Susan Sontag

Susan Sontag described how writing happened to me. From Dr. Sues to S.E. Hinton, Dickens to Hemingway, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky to James and Lawrence, Hugo, Goldsmith, Mann, Cervantes, Fitzgerald, Conrad, Joyce, and on-and-on, on-and-on, on-and-on, reading fired my impulse to write.

But I've watched movies without dreaming of becoming an actor, listened to music without dreaming of becoming a musician, and read books without dreaming of becoming a writer. The love of reading, instead of "mak[ing me] dream," made me do. That's how you become a writer: you write.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Wait

"I don't wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has got to get down to work."

- Pearl S. Buck

Waiting to write, whether on mood, money, or inspiration, is waiting for nothing, for nothing always comes.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Short Things

"Good things, when short, are twice as good."

   - Baltasar Gracián

So true.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Foundation of Frustration

"The road to ignorance is paved with good editors."

- George Bernard Shaw

The library of writing quotations has a foundation of frustration.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

One Reason

"Getting even is one reason for writing."

- William Gass

...Like getting drunk is one reason for drinking. Despite the reason you pull the cork from a bottle, you drink. Despite the reason you put words down on paper, you write, and that is enough.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Writing Is

While writing is a convenience of income, income is the inconvenience of writing.

- S.R. Lundin


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Acceptance and Rejection

"Writing is a struggle between presence and absence."
- Lu Ji

Publication is a struggle between feelings of acceptance and rejection.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Stab of Rejection

"Engrave this in your brain: EVERY WRITER GETS REJECTED. You will be no different."

- John Scalzi

Engraving the words in your brain hurts like the prick of a piercing, but it's nothing compared to the first stab of rejection.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Ridiculous Money

"Writing is the only profession where no one considers you ridiculous if you earn no money."

- Jules Renard

Writing is just one way you can make ridiculous amounts of money. Gambling is another.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Hopelessly Sane

"It is rarely that you see an American writer who is not hopelessly sane."

- Margaret Anderson


You see the crazy ones everywhere.



© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Pains of Birth

"When a woman is speaking to you, listen to what she says with her eyes."

- Victor Hugo

Unlike babies, writers must learn to see before they are ready for birth. That is the reason they spend so much time crying about critics, agents, rejection, writer's block, "conspirac[ies] against their talent," having to work so damn hard, and on-and-on. They are seeing and feeling the pains of birth.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Just the Lie

"Nowadays three witty turns of phrase and a lie make a writer."

- G. C. Lichtenberg (1742-99)

Ah, the good old days: So innocent. Today, it's three lies for one witty turn, and the witty turn is optional.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Writing Straight Out

"I know that if I have been working on one paragraph and I have written it three times, it goes in the bin. Unless it comes straight out, it is wrong, it is awkward, it does not fit."

- Robert Rankin

Forcing sentences and paragraphs makes writing hard work. Easy writing is easy work. Robert Rankin says it well: Writing is right, comfortable, and fits when "it comes straight out."


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Writer's Bite

"All of a writer that matters is in the book or books. It is idiotic to be curious about the person."

-Jean Rhys

What? Idiotic to care about the writer? Even though they're damn hard to catch, I want to see the spider that bites me.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Focus

"Words are a lens to focus one's mind. "

- Ayn Rand

Focus on words, see the sentence,
Focus on sentences; see the paragraph,
Focus on paragraphs, miss the story,
Focus small; write big.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Day is Done

"To withdraw myself from myself has ever been my sole, my entire, my sincere motive in scribbling at all."

- Lord Byron

Writers cannot withdraw themselves from their writings. It doesn't work. Sure we might read a story in which the characters, action, and dialog captivate us for three hundred pages or more, but then we are done. Whether in genre, voice, grammar, punctuation, or style, the writer is there in his story, and then there's the cover. Go to any bookstore and look at the bestsellers. Most titles are small compared to the names of their authors.

Today, Lord Byron's quotation is long out of date; it reads like he wrote it when the earth was still flat. Byron was a poet and, in his defense, readers seek themselves in poetry instead of the poet. In books they seek the story, and that is where they always find the writer. Poets withdraw and writers advance.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Years Yet to Live

"For your born writer, nothing is so healing as the realization that he has come upon the right word."

- Catherine Drinker Bowen

For your dead writer, nothing is more discouraging than the realization he has years yet to live.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Victory for Life

"Every word written is a victory against death."
- Michel Butor

Every book written is a victory for life.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Live With That

"Life cannot defeat a writer who is in love with writing; for life itself is a writer's love until death."

- Edna Ferber

Even though I believe writing will be my love until death, I wonder. If life cannot defeat a writer, why is it beating the hell out of me? Apparently, I have writing to thank for my survival; I can live with that.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Familiar to Us

"If a reporter doesn't like the person he's writing about, it shows up in his article."
- Willie Stargell

Novelists draw from such a large group of unlikable acquaintances that they never use just one in their writings. Instead, they combine the worst of each into a single character and call the monster, Antagonist. There's no wonder why such characters seem so real to us. Most are.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Authors and Lovers

"Authors and Lovers always suffer some infatuation, from which only absence can set them free."

- Samuel Johnson

Check that; it's absence, not abstinence.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Inspired Writing

"Good work doesn't happen with inspiration. It comes with
constant, often tedious and deliberate effort."
- William Hefferman

Inspiration is what makes the "constant, tedious, and deliberate effort" to write as easy as breathing, addicting as living, and pleasurable as... well, as pleasurable as whatever you enjoy the most. Inspired writing is no work at all.

© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Something to Say

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

Everyone has a story to tell. Most tell it with email, instant messaging, cell. phones, chat rooms, social networking, or chewing lips. Writers say it with silence.

© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Neither Man nor God

"Neither man nor God is going to tell me what to write."
- James T. Farrell

Damn right! You're the boss. What you write is yours alone. Hide it. That way no one will ever know you existed.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Celebrate Writing

Celebrate Writing
"Forget all the rules. Forget about being published. Write for yourself and celebrate writing."
- Melinda Haynes

Remember the rules. Think about being published. Write for everyone and wait to have your big party. That's how you celebrate writing.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Ultimate Fighting

"Listening to critics is like letting Muhammad Ali decide which astronaut goes to the moon."
-Robert Duvall

Challenging critics is like taking on a young Muhammad Ali. While he had muscle and moves long ago, critics have them today, and they never use gloves. There's no wonder ultimate fighting has grown in popularity! It's how writers face their critics.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

New Thing New Way

"The secret of good writing is to say an old thing in a new way or to say a new thing in an old way."
- Richard Harding Davis

Say an old thing in a new way for your father, a new thing in an old way for your grandfather, and a new thing in a new way for ever.

© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Write Now, Right Now

"Everything changes when you change."
-Jim Rohn

Everything changes when you write. Don't wait to start. Sure you'll be older and wiser when you finally begin, but your voice will be that of a child. Write now, right now.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Once Upon a Time

"May I never grow too old to treasure 'once upon a time'."
- Anonymous

May I remain young enough to write it.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Writing Survives

"Success comes to a writer as a rule, so gradually that it is always something of a shock to him to look back and realize the heights to which he has climbed."
- P.G. Wodehouse

Put a frog in a pan of cold water, turn on the heat, and watch what happens. When the temperature rises as slowly as success comes to a writer, the frog boils to death without feeling it happen.

Writers have the opposite problem; they do not feel cold. Encourage them to publish and watch what happens. When the temperature lowers as fast as rejection comes to writers, they freeze without feeling it happen.

While frogs boil and writers freeze, writing survives.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Face of Writer's Block

“A blank piece of paper is God's way of telling us how hard it is to be God.”
- Sidney Sheldon

If God speaks to us through blank pages, then blank computer documents are His way of telling us to write. If not, they're Satan's way of scaring us with writer's block.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Quoting Gloria

“Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don't feel I should be doing something else.”
- Gloria Steinem

Writing is the only reason I could ever quote Gloria Steinem.

© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Two Word Quotations

Two word quotations require one hundred words of thought.
- S.R. Lundin


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Voodoo Word Games

"In composing, as a general rule, run a pen through every other
word you have written; you have no idea what vigor it will give
your style."
- Sydney Smith


___ advice ___ helps ___ write ___, but ___ you __ read ___ crap?

I played Smith's game with a simple sentence. Instead of adding vigor to my writing style, the exercise spoke a truth and asked a question. I won't play that again. What if these hidden communications had been "writing will kill you" or "today you will die?" Smith's voodoo game of words needs a warning label. Play at your own risk.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Hook of the Bottle

"If your vision of a writer involves sitting in a cafe, sipping an aperitif with one's fellow geniuses, become a drunk. It's easier and far less exhausting."
- William Hefferman

Writers drawn to the lure of image are easily caught by the hook of the bottle.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Writing Counts

“Writing counts.”
- Allyson Dickey

The number of ways writing counts? It's impossible to count.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Exquisite Burden

“Revision is one of the exquisite pleasures of writing.”
-Bernard Malamud


Had Bernard Malamud called revision one of the "necessary burdens" instead of "exquisite pleasures" of writing, I would think of him like a brother. Instead, he's more the father my mother left before I was born.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Answer with a Letter

"What a lot we lost when we stopped writing letters. You can't reread a phone call."
- Liz Carpenter

What's worse? Being unable to reread a phone call or not being able to read all of your email? Answer with a letter.

© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Nail Biting

"Work every day. No matter what has happened the day or night before. Get up and bite on the nail."
- Ernest Hemingway

Hemingway's advice is great. Try it. Get up and write every day -- no matter what you did the night before or at what time you went to bed. And don't worry about biting the nail. In time, you'll feel like you've swallowed it whole.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

The Writing Magic

"When you start writing the magic comes when the characters seem to take on a life of their own and write the words for themselves."
- Alice Hoffman

Writing takes hard work, not magic. When you're writing and your characters refuse to come to life, be thankful. They need you. They're just characters, but they have an awesome ability of bringing writers to life.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

The Naked Costume

"Writing songs is super intimate. It's a bit like getting naked."
- Gwen Stephani

Writing fiction is like being a stage actor. You wear so many costumes that even your friends have trouble seeing the real you.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Good for the Wealth

"Writing is hard work and bad for the health."
- E B White

Bad for the health but good for the wealth.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Television's Whore

"Television has raised writing to a new low."
- Samuel Goldwyn

Television affects writing like a half rack of beer. It lightens her mood, loosens her tongue, slurs her speech, and removes her inhibitions. Instead of a lover, though, television is a pimp, making writing his whore.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Fiction's Spider

"Fiction is like a spider’s web, attached ever so slightly perhaps, but still attached to life at all four corners."
- Virginia Woolf

Fiction's spider plays. She abandons her web the moment she senses the writer's approach, enticing him to explore her sticky trap. And then she returns, then she bites. Instead of devouring him, though, she leaves him stuck on a one genre web. She knows from experience that most writers never escape. Fewer still even try.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Anger Writes Noise

Words sound the emotions of your moments. When you're angry, never write about love. Anger writes noise.
Instead of weakness, write out of your strength. When you are happy, the mood spreads through your writings like sunlight through the dark, touching, lighting, and warming even the coldest pains of your heart. Happiness writes itself.
- SR Lundin


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Don't Quote Me

Screenplay writing is more like computer programming than real writing, but don't quote me on that.
- S.R. Lundin


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Hell on Earth

"My working habits are simple: long periods of thinking, short periods of writing."
- Anonymous

Imagine the opposite working habits: short periods of thinking and long periods of writing. If not dystopia, then hell on earth.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Thankful for Poets

"I firmly believe every book was meant to be written."
- Marchette Chute

Had Marchette Chute been a literary agent, her "every book was meant to be written" might have been "only a few books were meant to be written, and my job is to find them. Yours is not one."

Writers, be thankful for poets.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Writer's Test

"The only thing I was fit for was to be a writer, and this notion rested solely on my suspicion that I would never be fit for real work, and that writing didn't require any."
- Russell Baker

WRITER'S TEST (answer the following):

1. The only work you are fit for is writing Yes / No
2. Writing is not real work Yes / No
3. Writing does not require any work Yes / No
4. You are a Pulitzer Prize winning author Yes / No


RESULTS (count number of Yes answers):

zero -- Don't waste your time writing
one -- Never stop doing what you do
two -- Discover the truth
three -- There is no truth
four -- You are Russell Baker (or a Pulitzer winner just like him)


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

99% of Stories

"The reason 99% of all stories written are not bought by editors is very simple. Editors never buy manuscripts that are left on the closet shelf at home."
- John Campbell

Today's reason why 99% of all stories are not bought by editors is as simple as the old reason. Instead of writers leaving manuscripts sitting on closet shelves at home, they're sending them to literary agents. The result is the same; editors never buy what they never see.





© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Rejection

"Rejection slips, or form letters, however tactfully phrased, are lacerations of the soul, if not quite inventions of the devil - but there is no way around them."
- Isaac Asimov

No trying, no rejection.
One rejection, one broken heart.
One hundred rejections, one hardened heart.
Years of rejection, one hell of a writer.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Lovers, Siblings, and Enemies

"Ink and paper are sometimes passionate lovers, oftentimes brother and sister, and occasionally mortal enemies."
- Emme Woodhull-Bäche

The relationships between ink and paper are the same relationships writers have with their writings. When writing, they have passionate lovers. When editing, siblings, and when they get stuck waiting for inspiration, they have mortal enemies. How ironic it is that only their mortal enemies cannot kill them. Their lovers and siblings are another story.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Great Effort

"When something can be read without effort, great effort has gone into its writing."
- Enrique Jardiel Poncela

When something can be written without effort, great effort is needed to proof it.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Proof to See

"Proofread carefully to see if you any words out."
   - Author Unknown

Or to see what extra words are hiding in in your writings.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Rite Right? Wrong Write

Rite Right? Wrong Write.
   - S.R. Lundin


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Watch and See

Read and watch, write and see.
- S.R. Lundin


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Relief of Silence

"Writing is a struggle against silence."

   - Carlos Fuentes

On the contrary, writing is relief from the noise of characters, stories, themes, plots, and ideas all clamoring for attention. Writing is a relief of silence.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Totter Like the Rest of Us

"The act of putting pen to paper encourages pause for thought, this in turn makes us think more deeply about life, which helps us regain our equilibrium."

   - Norbet Platt

This is comforting for new authors. Out there is balance. Get up. Keep writing, especially after the effort to become a writer knocks the crap out of you. Until you regain your equilibrium, keep going; all you have to do is think shallow and totter like the rest of us.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Favorite Book

If you have a favorite book, then you haven't read enough books.
    - S.R. Lundin


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Cridiots

"There is no mistaking the dismay on the face of a writer who has just heard that his brain child is a deformed idiot."
   - L. Sprague de Camp


Excepting, of course, the professional opinions of deformed cridiots (critics who are idiots).


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Whisper Write

"What I like in a good author is not what he says, but what he whispers."
- Logan Pearsall Smith (Afterthoughts)
Reading is like listening to your father. When he talks, you listen. When he shouts, you miss most of what he says. When he preaches, you think of your plans for later that night and, when he whispers, you never miss a word. Writers must use every voice if their whispers are to scream.

Please visit Shooting an Albatross

© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

No Refunds for Skipping

"I try to leave out the parts that people skip."

- Elmore Leonard

What is read today, though skipped last year, gets honored next month. Fickle fellows favor fashion, though astute authors are always audacious; they keep their pennies. They refund nothing for the parts readers skip.

© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

C.R.A.P.

"Be obscure clearly." - E.B. White

The king of clarity pushing obscurity? That's like a rapper singing country (country+rap= crap).


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Prostitues

"Writing is like prostitution. First you do it for love, and then for a few close friends, and then for money."
-Moliere

Writing really is like prostitution. Writers do share themselves with whomever pays them, they numb themselves from reality while they work, agents pimp them out on the street, and only the best make the big money. Hmm. It's no wonder Hollywood portrays them as drunks, psychos, and addicts.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Some Things Never Change

"Not every story has explosions and car chases. That's why they have nudity and espionage."

- Bill Barnes and Gene Ambaum

Nudity and espionage are cheap easy tricks for getting attention. So, too, are explosions and car chases. But stories in which nothing explodes, where cars stay still, characters remain clothed, and no one spies on their neighbors are boring to modern readers. Ironically, writers today must show meaning in speeding, sneaking, lurking, smashing, and stripping characters. But that's writing. Some things never change.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Will and Desire

"I see the notion of talent as quite irrelevant. I see instead perseverance, application, industry, assiduity, will, will, will, desire, desire, desire."
- Gordon Lish

If you write until you feel Lish's meaning, you will never stop writing.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Characteristic of You

"The characteristic of Chaucer is intensity: of Spencer, remoteness: of Milton elevation and of Shakespeare everything."


- William Hazlitt



... the characteristics of you, who knows? Write something. Let posterity figure you out.



Please visit Shooting an Albatross





© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Hear, Feel, and See

"My task...is to make you hear, to make you feel--and, above all, to make you see. That is all, and it is everything."
- Joseph Conrad

Doctor, make you hear,
Preacher, make you feel,
Teacher, make you see,
A writer? ... make you hear, feel, and see?

"That is all, and it is everything." - Joseph Conrad (M.D., pastor, Ph.D.?)

© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Write in The Zone

"The strokes of the pen need deliberation as much as the sword needs swiftness."
- Julia Ward Howe

Professional basketball players "in the zone" do not deliberate. Their years of dedication, passion, and practice gives them the stroke and swiftness of a champion. They seem "unconscious" while they are playing. The same can be true for writers. Beginning writers should, and do, over think their words, sentences, and paragraphs, remembering to dribble first, thinking to plant their foot, to box-out, rebound, keep their hands up, and so on. They practice for years. While only a few ever write in the zone, most writers are satisfied just being unconscious.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

When a Nation Loses

"If a nation loses its [writers], it loses its childhood."
- Peter Handke

When a nation loses its readers, it loses its wisdom.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Trust Inspiration

"When I sit at my table to write, I never know what it's going to be until I'm under way. I trust in inspiration, which sometimes comes and sometimes doesn't. But I don't sit back waiting for it. I work every day."

- Alberto Moravia

Try it. Write every day. You will discover writing, and inspiration will discover you. You will learn you can trust it. Inspiration always comes every time. But writers beware! Inspiration will always out wait your complacency.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Bore The Reader

"It is a cardinal sin to bore the reader."

- Larry Niven

Whether it is the whisper of a nudge, shout of a shove, or scream of a scratch, published authors can always hear the sound of their success or failure. Unfortunately, it can happen after they have already lost their readers, and to get them back requires something like forgiving a cardinal sin. It takes a miracle. It takes a savior - just don't go there.

© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Crazy

"Reality leaves a lot to the imagination."
- John Lennon

While imagination without reality is only insanity, reality without imagination is death. Writers imagine between insanity and death. They're crazy.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Sell Out

"Writers are always selling somebody out."
- Joan Didion

Sell out your hero and sell out your readers. Sell out your antagonist and sell out your books


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

The Muddle

"Many modern novels have a beginning, a muddle and an end."

- Philip Larkin

Character is in the muddle.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Art of Words

"Literature is all, or mostly, about sex."
- Anthony Burgess

Literature is not at all about sex. If it was, then more people would write, but fewer would read. Literature is, instead, the art of words, painted with fingers and viewed in minds.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Scrubbing the Basement

"Rewriting is like scrubbing the basement floor with a toothbrush."
- Pete Murphy

I happened across this quotation at an unfortunate time in my life. I had challenged myself to write an entire novel in quotation marks (by having a character tell the whole story, just like Joseph Conrad had Marlow do in "Lord Jim") but, as soon as I completed the first draft of the book, I awoke to the truth that readers no longer care for the mental price it costs them to read such a work. I was told today's readers prefer entertainment --I call it mindrest word watching. As a consequence, I rewrote the entire book, and that is when I read Pete Murphy's quotation. I remember frowning, stopping what I was doing at the time, nodding my head in agreement, spreading my arms in submission, and speaking out loud at my desk, "Damn right! Murphy! Where were you thirty days ago?"

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/liquidstereo/2546734860/


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Be Readable

"The virtue of books is to be readable."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Writers should write with Emerson's words in mind. If not, then they write for themselves, probably quite well, too, but their work will more likely reside in journals kept under their desks than on book shelves in stores. Some say that money is not the object, and I agree. Writing is the point, but for whom do we write? Readers. Create a universe, populate it, add a protagonist, confront him or her with an antagonist, give them opposing goals, stir the pages with conflict, and make your readers demand to read a next page. Just watch what happens. You can have everything you want. Why? Because "[t]he virtue of books is to be readable." Emerson was right.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Broyard's Either/or Writers

"Either a writer doesn't want to talk about his work, or he talks about it more than you want."
- Anatole Broyard

After completing my first novel, I placed the thick manuscript in a box under a cabinet in my dining room. I was unsure what to do with it. The book-in-a-box seemed foreign in my day job life. It was as though my heart was inside that box and, by opening the lid, someone might see me, see through me, know my passion, and then dismiss me as a dreamer or label my work a cute little hobby. Back then, I would never talk about the book.
My wife likes to host frequent dinner parties, and so it was that she began, only occasionally at first, withdrawing the box, removing the lid, and showing the contents to whomever happened to be sharing our table. The first time she did this, I became an apologist and quickly re-lid and re-hid the box. What could I say? It was a book-in-a-box. It was all about me.

I next became an example of what Anatole Broyard meant in the second part of his quotation about writers. I had to check myself whenever someone asked me about my writing. Rather than engaging in conversation, where my questions would come in a number equal to my answers, I went through a phase of nonstop talking about writing, how wonderful it was, its influence on someone living a day-job life, how light, color, conversation, emotion, eye contact, and a thousand other sensory perceptions revealed to me a richer world, and on-and-on. I could not shut up.

Finally, there came a time when Broyard's "either or" of writers no longer worked for me. It is a time of peace, and it feels like right now.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Damn Hard Writing

"Easy reading is damn hard writing." -Nathaniel Hawthorne

He says it well. However, I have never met anyone who says Hawthorne is easy reading. Rather, they complain about his dated use of the English language. His words sound in the mind like a preacher's but, from my experience raising three young adults, I know Hawthorne still manages to capture attention with his compelling stories. They laughed where Hawthorne would have them laughing, complained where he would have them complaining, and followed to where he leads their minds. He was an excellent writer.

Given today's short attention spans, television, commercials, sound bites, and the evolution or de-evolution of language, I think Hawthorne might have said it differently today. He might have said, "Easy reading gets hard with time until it becomes as damn hard as the writing."


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Ubiquitous and Invisible

"An author in his book must be like God in the universe, present everywhere and visible nowhere."
- Gustave Flaubert

This is the third of the three quotations my son placed on stepping stones near my barbecue, and it is, by far, the most interesting to me. First, Flaubert. I took his novel, Madame Bovary, with me on vacation in Mexico. About eight years ago, I was sitting under a palapa in Puerto Vallarta, reading an unwieldy, leather-bound copy of the book, wondering about the effects of sand on archival quality paper, when I encountered Flaubert's sense of humor. The point of view character of his story was a rural man who referred to his wife's feet as "two cold stones at the end of the bed." Because I remember the metaphor and still laugh at the image, though I've read nothing else by Flaubert, I like him.

As for his quotation about an author in his book, I have mixed feelings. I of course appreciate Flaubert's truth, but what of this elevated comparison of an author to the God of the universe? I wonder at a tone of arrogance, but if a story is a universe and its author a creator, then Gustave said it well. Ubiquitous and invisible, writers write.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

One with the Earth

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

This is a second quotation my son had engraved on a plate that he affixed to a stepping stone outside where I barbecue. Why does Thoreau's quotation bother me? Rather than stare at it, I read the words from a corner of my eye, looking more like an embarrassed dog than like a man awed by the profound. Am I convicted? Is it vanity?

My picture of Mr. Thoreau is not one of him floating out on the Pond under a warm and buzzing sky but, instead, I see him laying on the ground, doing nothing but feeling, and discovering his destiny of becoming one with the earth, of becoming something like a pumpkin left in the field one month after harvest. But then what did he do? He stood up to live, sat down to write and, in so doing, left the quotation that lives at my feet.

I have never given respect to Thoreau's Bohemian style, and I've always shied away from Thoreau to gaze at Emerson. Emerson, though, circles me back to Thoreau. What a mess--especially at this time in my life when I am forced to sit down to live.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved

Staring out of windows

"What no wife of a writer can ever understand is that a writer is working when he's staring out the window." -Burton Rascoe

My son had this and two other quotations engraved on brass plates. He affixed the plates on stepping-stones and gave them to me for Father's Day last year. I placed all three out where I could see them when I barbecue. What a treat Rasco's quote is to read. Every time I read it, I laugh. The words he used, though simple enough, bring to mind James Thurber's character, Walter Mitty (from The Secret Life of Walter Mitty). Poor Mitty, poor Rascoe, but what about all of those wives with husbands staring out of windows?


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved