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