week 8–9

Well, we had to find quotes by authors on the writing process this week for ICW so here they are. 

The first principle is that a poet writes his personal life in his work out of its tragedy, whatever it may be, remorse, lost love, or mere loneliness

- W.B. Yeats

I’d been having a bad week. The script I was meant to be writing just wasn’t happening, and I’d spend days staring at a blank screen, occasionally writing a word like the and staring at it for and hour or so and then slowly, letter by letter, I’d delete it and write and or but instead. Then I’d exit without saving. Ed Kramer phoned and reminded me that I owed him a story for an anothology of stories about the Holy Grail which he was editing with the ubiquitous Marty Greenberg. And seeing nothing else was happening and that this story was living in the back of my mind I said sure.

   I wrote it in a weekend, a gift form the gods, easy and sweet as anything. Suddenly I was a writer transformed: I laughed in the face of danger and spat on the shoes of writer’s block. Then I sat and stared glumly at a blank screen for another week because the gods have a sense of humour.

- Neil Gaiman

On sitting down to write: It's like standing on the edge of a cliff. This is especially true of the first draft. Every day you're making up the earth you're going to stand on.

- Peter Carey

The act of writing appeases one’s memories and eases the act of forgetting. When I write, I make my memories tangible, and in this way I can get rid of them. On the other hand, writing is but a ploy to convulse memory back into life. And the more I write, the more my memories return to inhabit me.

- Jorge Semprùn

: 26 Nov 2007 19:40 |  Tags: Icw Quotes Writing Process |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem