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