January 2011
Your Age On Other Worlds →
exploratorium.edu
I’m gonna celebrate ALL of my birthdays this year!
I’m almost 1 in Saturn years!
“I paint myself because I am so often alone and because I am the subject I know best.”
—Frida Kahlo (via museedart)
“this is cute and disgusting and I like it a lot”
—@russmarshalek, re: my writing. <3
“But then came our current age of oversharing, and all heck broke loose. These days, if you’re planning to browse the “memoir” listings on Amazon, make sure you’re in a comfortable chair, because that search term produces about 40,000 hits, or 60,000, or 160,000, depending on how you execute it.”
—
My hypothetical panties remain unbunched by this piece by Neil Glenzinger, because why bother, but:
- That first sentence is a nightmare about sentences.
- I hope you have you have a comfortable chair if you plan on browsing (but buying at your local independent bookseller!) anything on Amazon. Amazon has lots of things. Over 2 million titles in fiction. Everyone is oversharing their made-up stories in 2011! Things are not the way that they used to be!
- I am somehow always surprised that otherwise smart-seeming people are somehow always surprised that lots of bad books get written and published. Let’s call it The Problem With Reviewers. (Cf. Elif Batuman on writing workshops.) Many books are bad. You do not love all but a handful of the 6+ billion people that exist right now. Movies are often meh. Most meals are less than memorable. Just because bad books exist, and you’ve managed to round up a few at once, does not mean you should be pronouncing pronouncements and stating statements. You just ate a few shitty meals. Perhaps you should try eating somewhere else instead of denouncing all food.
(via mcnallyjackson)
…my thoughts exactly.
“1 When still a child, make sure you read a lot of books. Spend more time doing this than anything else.
2 When an adult, try to read your own work as a stranger would read it, or even better, as an enemy would.
3 Don’t romanticise your “vocation”. You can either write good sentences or you can’t. There is no “writer’s lifestyle”. All that matters is what you leave on the page.
4 Avoid your weaknesses. But do this without telling yourself that the things you can’t do aren’t worth doing. Don’t mask self-doubt with contempt.
5 Leave a decent space of time between writing something and editing it.
6 Avoid cliques, gangs, groups. The presence of a crowd won’t make your writing any better than it is.
7 Work on a computer that is disconnected from the internet.
8 Protect the time and space in which you write. Keep everybody away from it, even the people who are most important to you.
9 Don’t confuse honours with achievement.
10 Tell the truth through whichever veil comes to hand – but tell it. Resign yourself to the lifelong sadness that comes from never being satisfied.” —
2 When an adult, try to read your own work as a stranger would read it, or even better, as an enemy would.
3 Don’t romanticise your “vocation”. You can either write good sentences or you can’t. There is no “writer’s lifestyle”. All that matters is what you leave on the page.
4 Avoid your weaknesses. But do this without telling yourself that the things you can’t do aren’t worth doing. Don’t mask self-doubt with contempt.
5 Leave a decent space of time between writing something and editing it.
6 Avoid cliques, gangs, groups. The presence of a crowd won’t make your writing any better than it is.
7 Work on a computer that is disconnected from the internet.
8 Protect the time and space in which you write. Keep everybody away from it, even the people who are most important to you.
9 Don’t confuse honours with achievement.
10 Tell the truth through whichever veil comes to hand – but tell it. Resign yourself to the lifelong sadness that comes from never being satisfied.” —
Zadie Smith’s ten rules for writing fiction. (via unicornology) (via baringmysoul) (via writingadvice) (via the-write-idea)
everything but the last one which is meh…you CAN be satisfied with your art.
