Sunday, February 24, 2019

Buy a cat, stay up late, don’t drink: top 10 writers’ tips on writing

"When you go through deep waters, I will be with you." 
Isaiah 43:2 ::: 4 + 3= 7

Hemingway's Writing Tip That Will Save You Time and Energy | Inc.com


"What was true of him as a boy was true of him in middle life: he was at once older and younger than the average man of his years. . . . He had experienced enough new impressions to last him for life; he realized that new ones would merely disturb him.”

'But I Am Impenitent'






Come with me this morning to the church within our hearts, where the bells are always ringing, and the preacher whose name is Love — shall intercede for us!”



       At the TLS Roland Kelts profiles Murakami Haruki, talking to him: 'about his legacy, his critics and the pleasures of translation', in Still swinging for the fences: Murakami in conversation. 
       Among the interesting titbits is how he goes about publishing his books -- certainly not the way things are done ... anywhere else ?

He won’t accept advances, he says, because he wants the freedom of writing whatever he wants for whomever he chooses. He finishes a novel, loads it onto a USB stick and hands it over to the publisher of his choice.

“I just visit some publisher and say, ‘Here is my fiction’. The publisher is so surprised! They’re happy, I’m happy. I like to be free. I have my own right to give it to anybody.”
       Good to see his translation-enthusiasm, too -- "the key to his intuition as a fiction writer":
“I learned so many things from translation”, he says. “In writing there is a kind of secret to it. So when you do the translating, you can catch the secret. For instance, you translate The Great Gatsby. There are so many secrets for writing in that book, and you can catch them. If you just read that book, you can feel those secrets but you cannot catch them. But if you translate, it’s the ultimate close reading.”




Though part of me thinks this should only be used for Cold River



Powerful swell from Cyclone Oma to reach Sydney on Sunday


The cool, wet weather from the past two days is set to repeat again this weekend.




Buy a cat, stay up late, don’t drink: top 10 writers’ tips on writing


Made a New Year resolution to start writing that novel? Take some writing tips from Leo Tolstoy, Muriel Spark, John Steinbeck and other famous authors
Over the past year, Helen Gordon and I have been putting together Being a Writer, a collection of musings, tips and essays from some of our favourite authors about the business of writing, ranging from the time of Samuel Johnson and Grub Street, to the age of Silicon Roundabout and Lorrie Moore.

Researching the book, it quickly became obvious that there isn’t a correct way to set about writing creatively, which is a liberating thought. For every novelist who needs to isolate themselves in a quiet office (Jonathan Franzen), there’s another who works best at the local coffee shop (Rivka Galchen) or who struggles to snatch an hour between chores and children (a young Alice Munro).
Conversely, it also became apparent that alongside all this variety of approach, there are certain ideas and pieces of advice that many writers hold in common. In an 1866 letter to Mrs Brookfield, Charles Dickens suggests that: “You constantly hurry your narrative ... by telling it, in a sort of impetuous breathless way, in your own person, when the people [characters] should tell it and act it for themselves.” Basically: SHOW DON’T TELL. Three words that will be familiar to anyone who has sat in a 21st-century creative writing class


Our book therefore contains a lot of writing advice, ranging from the sternly practical to the gloriously idiosyncratic. We have writers talking about what went wrong, as well as what went right. They discuss failing to finish a manuscript, failing to find a publisher, badly realised characters and tortuous, unwieldy plots. Here are a just few of our favourite tips, which we believe any aspiring writer should take to heart.

1. ( Jozef Imrich likes ) Hilary Mantel – a little arrogance can be a great help “The most helpful quality a writer can cultivate is self-confidence – arrogance, if you can manage it. You write to impose yourself on the world, and you have to believe in your own ability when the world shows no sign of agreeing with you.”

The Pete Davis Dispatch





Yanni AcottFollow
Every minute someone leaves this world behind.
Age has nothing to do with it.
We are all in this the line without realizing it.
We never know how many people are before us. We can not move to the back of the line.
We can not step out of the line.
We can not avoid the line.

So while we wait in line -
Make moments count.
Make a difference.
Make the call.
Make priorities.
Make the time.
Make your gifts known.
Make a nobody feel like a somebody.
Make your voice heard.
Make the small things big.
Make someone smile.
Make the change.
Make yourself a priority.
Make love.
Make up.
Make peace.
Make sure to tell your people they are loved.
Make waves.
Make sure to have no regrets.
Make sure you are ready.



This world will often leave you wishing you had just 5 more minutes. Feel free to share this powerful reminder on perspective & wake up each day realizing it is a gift & to make the most of it!💖 https://www.instagram.com/yanniacott/…