C.S. Lewis, Annie Dillard, & Augustine Sound Off
One of my resolutions for the new year has to do with writing deliberately and with greater focus. I’m playing with the idea of re-opening the Pandora’s box called “my novel”—which, to point out the obvious, has never really been closed since I opened it in the first place.
I’m not sure what effects such a goal would have on this blog, but as far as BitterSweetLife goes, I want to maintain (recapture?) the tone and content that has characterized it for most of its young life. That may mean, among other things, fewer posts but more thoughtful and creative ones. Whatever I end up doing, looking to some great writers for advice can’t hurt.
To that end, I’m posting some of my favorite quotes on writing. I’d also like to hear from anyone else who’s heading into 2007 with authorial aspirations—be it to get something published, or simple to hone your blogging abilities. So use the link field to point us to your quote(s) and possibly some commentary on where you want your writing to head in the year ahead. The invitation’s open.
And now, here are some great quotes on writing from the likes of C.S. Lewis and Saint Augustine, who would have been prolific bloggers if given the chance. Be inspired, be instructed—and then go pound something out on your own keyboard.
I am the sort of man who writes because he has made progress, and who makes progress by writing. - Augustine
Yet we must say something when those who say the most are saying nothing. - Augustine, The Confessions
Rembrandt and Shakespeare, Tolstoy and Gauguin, possessed, I believe, powerful hearts, not powerful wills. They loved the range of materials they used. The work’s possibilities excite them; the field’s complexities fired their imaginations. The caring suggested the tasks; the tasks suggested the schedules. They learned their fields and then loved them. - Annie Dillard, The Writing Life
What you want is practice, practice, practice. It doesn’t matter what we write (at least this is my view) at our age, so long as we write continually as well as we can. I feel that every time I write a page either of prose or of verse, with real effort, even if it’s thrown into the fire the next minute, I am so much further on. - C.S. Lewis, Letters of C.S. Lewis to Arthur Greeves
I am sure that some are born to write as trees are born to bear leaves: for these, writing is a necessary mode of their own development. If the impulse to write survives the hope of success, then one is among these. If not, then the impulse was at best only pardonable vanity, and it will certainly disappear when the hope is withdrawn. - C.S. Lewis, Letters of C.S. Lewis to Arthur Greeves
Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it. Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life, and you will save it. - C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
And now that you’ve been challenged… I’m convinced that humor is also essential to the writing process:
I do not so much write a book as sit up with it, as with a dying friend. During visiting hours, I enter its room with dread and sympathy for its many disorders. I hold its hand and hope it will get better. - Annie Dillard, The Writing Life
Only kings, presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right to use the editorial "we." - Mark Twain
Don't say the old lady screamed. Bring her on and let her scream. - Mark Twain
A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people. - Thomas Mann
Finally, remember that lesson that hopefully we all learned in English 101:
Only the hand that erases can write the true thing. - Meister Eckhart
Now, what have you got?
14 comments:
I'm eligible for a sabbatical this coming school year, so (assuming it's granted me) I'd really love to (finally) get my dissertation turned into a book. We shall see.
The Annie Dillard quote reminded me, by way of contrast, with something Truman Capote once said (and I apologize in advance for not quoting exactly accurately): "When you finish a novel, it's like you've just taken your favorite child into the back yard and shot him."
And (sort of) along those lines, something by William S. Burroughs: "If I were a really good writer, I'd be able to write something so that when someone read it, it would kill them."
Sorry for the morbid quotes . . . and best of luck to you, Ariel.
My favourite quote on writing comes from Red Smith:
There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.
"Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader -- not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.
-- E.L. Doctorow
"And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt."
-- Sylvia Plath
I am in the process of writing a "novel," but I don't like calling it that.
I am in the process of wandering/wondering through characters for another story, trying to find/reinventing reasons for their actions.
I am in the process of weaving multiple threads of Celtic legend together with real-world events to make a hopefully non-awkward and amusing tale.
And I am about to suffer through "Multimedia Reporting" this semester. Oh boy.
I like this from Anne Lamott:
... with writing, you start where you are, and you usually do it poorly. You just do it--you do it afraid. And something happens.
And a a little later she amplifies the same idea:
I know that with writing, you start where you are, and you flail around for a while, and if you keep doing it, every day you get closer to something good.
Hey Arie!
I think the idea of you writing a novel is great. Not only because I would enjoy being friends with a famous author, but also because I think you'd do a good job. Would love to hear the ideas you already have.
Looking forward to hanging out with you guys again soon (Feb.-April)! C-ya
I'm reading "If You Want to Write" by Brenda Ueland. Surprising that it was first published in 1938. It seems so "now." Ueland insists that everyone is "original and has something to say." Ah, if we only felt that way about our writing...
You know, AJ, Wil Wheaton (http://www.wilwheaton.net) wrote a book that was mostly inspired by posts from his blog.
Ariel, perhaps i have mentioned this before, but have you ever read Of Other Worlds by Lewis? I'm sure you have...it is perhaps one of my most beloved of his works. Just essays on writing (mostly on writing for children) BUT still so very inspirational.
-"No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally (and often far more) worth reading at the age of fifty-except, of course, books of information. The only imaginative works we ought to grow out of are those which it would have been better to have not read at all...I am almost inclined to set it up as a canon that a children's story which is only enjoyed by children is a bad children's story."
-"Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are marks of childhood and adolescence...When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."
I was just posting the same Anne Lamont quote that Widening Circles added on my own blog. New to blogging and starting my own writing journey. Can't wait to read more of your entries! Thanks for offering inspiration.
Thanks, Stacy. This was a fun post, with all the quotes that other people chipped in.
I just took a look at your blog, and you're off to a great start. Keep up the good work.
Stumbled upon your blog looking for a quote, but let me say that you should pick up that novel and write it.
Maria
Ariel,
Do you have the complete and accurate quotation of Lewis writing something like this: "I find that when I write about what interests me, then other people are interested in what I write." Thanks.
Phil
Hey Phil, sorry it took me so long to reply. I checked my quote "database," and didn't find that Lewis bit. It sounds familiar, though. If you find it, I'd be curious to know what it's from.
Great post!
"A good novel tells us the truth about its hero, but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author."
~ G. K. Chesterton (1874 - 1936)
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