More quotes
As predicted, I read the Patchett book again this morning. (Seriously, it's 100 pages, huge type, big margins, tons of stock photos of crossroads and intersections; it took me 20 minutes max.)
A few more passages that I decided I couldn't live without writing down before I returned the book to the library. I hope I'm not violating the percentage part of the fair use exemption by posting them here!
Writing is good for a many things, but curing loneliness isn’t one of them.
Sometimes not having any idea where we’re going works out better than we could possibly have imagined. … And sometimes, we don’t realize what we’ve learned until we’ve already known it for a very long time.
And the most awesome analogy for writing ever:
I came to understand that fiction writing is like duck hunting. You go to the right place at the right time with the right dog. You get into the water before dawn, wearing a little protective gear, then you stay behind some reeds and wait for the story to present itself. This is not to say you are passive. You choose the place and the day. You pick the gun and the dog. You have the desire to blow the duck apart for reasons that are entirely your own. But you have to be willing to accept not what you wanted to have happen, but what happens. You have to write the story you find in the circumstances you’ve created, because more often than not the ducks don’t show up. The hunters in the next blind begin to argue and you realize they’re in love. You see a snake swimming in your direction. Your dog begins to shiver and whine, and you start to think about this gun that belonged to your father. By the time you get out of the marsh you have written a novel so devoid of ducks it will shock you.
A few more passages that I decided I couldn't live without writing down before I returned the book to the library. I hope I'm not violating the percentage part of the fair use exemption by posting them here!
Writing is good for a many things, but curing loneliness isn’t one of them.
Sometimes not having any idea where we’re going works out better than we could possibly have imagined. … And sometimes, we don’t realize what we’ve learned until we’ve already known it for a very long time.
And the most awesome analogy for writing ever:
I came to understand that fiction writing is like duck hunting. You go to the right place at the right time with the right dog. You get into the water before dawn, wearing a little protective gear, then you stay behind some reeds and wait for the story to present itself. This is not to say you are passive. You choose the place and the day. You pick the gun and the dog. You have the desire to blow the duck apart for reasons that are entirely your own. But you have to be willing to accept not what you wanted to have happen, but what happens. You have to write the story you find in the circumstances you’ve created, because more often than not the ducks don’t show up. The hunters in the next blind begin to argue and you realize they’re in love. You see a snake swimming in your direction. Your dog begins to shiver and whine, and you start to think about this gun that belonged to your father. By the time you get out of the marsh you have written a novel so devoid of ducks it will shock you.
posted by Madame Defarge at 8:01 AM
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