Our Power is Patience

Our power is patience. We have discovered that writing allows even a stupid person to seem halfway intelligent, if only that person will write the same thought over and over again, improving it just a little bit each time. It is a lot like inflating a blimp with a bicycle pump. Anybody can do it. All it takes is time.


KURT VONNEGUT

You Can’t Write What You Wouldn’t Read for Pleasure

The most important thing is you can’t write what you wouldn’t read for pleasure. It’s a mistake to analyze the market thinking you can write whatever is hot. You can’t say you’re going to write romance when you don’t even like it. You need to write what you would read if you expect anybody else to read it.
 And you have to be driven. You have to have the three D’s: drive, discipline and desire. If you’re missing any one of those three, you can have all the talent in the world, but it’s going to be really hard to get anything done.

NORA ROBERTS

Writing Is An Act of Courage

I strongly believe that writing is an act of courage. It’s almost an act of physical courage. You get up and you have this great idea. Maybe you were hanging out with your friends—you guys were having beers and you were talking about something. You had this idea and they said, “Wow, that’s brilliant! Someone should go write it.” And you sit down to write it and almost always what was brilliant before, when you were sitting around talking, is somehow not so brilliant when you go to write. It’s as though you have a certain music in your head, and trying to get that music out on a page is absolute hell. And so you fail. If you’re doing it correctly, what happens is, the translation of what you hear in your head, what your idea is in your head, will almost always come out really badly on the page when you first write, okay? But what you have to do is you have to give yourself a day, go back, revise over and over and over again until you get something that is at least maybe 70 percent of what you wanted to do. You try to go from really bad to okay to acceptable. Then you know you’ve done your job. I never really get to that perfect thing that was in my head, so I always consider the entire process about failure. I think that’s the main reason why more people don’t write. It’s very depressing in that way.

TA-NEHISI COATES

What Causes Writers Bloc?

Completing A Book is Like Having a Baby

Completing a book, it’s a little like having a baby. There’s a feeling of relief and satisfaction when you get to the end. A feeling that you have brought your family, your characters, home. Then a sort of post-natal depression and then, very quickly, the horizon of a new book. The consolation that next time I will do it better.

JOHN LE CARRÉ

Some Books Refuse to be Written

There are some books that refuse to be written. They stand their ground year after year and will not be persuaded. It isn't because the book is not there and worth being written—it is only because the right form of the story does not present itself. There is only one right form for a story and if you fail to find that form the story will not tell itself.

MARK TWAIN

Novels Are Never About What They Are About

But novels are never about what they are about; that is, there is always deeper, or more general, significance. The author may not be aware of this till she is pretty far along with it. A novel’s whole pattern is rarely apparent at the outset of writing, or even at the end; that is when the writer finds out what a novel is about, and the job becomes one of understanding and deepening or sharpening what is already written. That is finding the theme.

DIANE JOHNSON

The Hollywood Totem Pole

In Hollywood, you’re dealing with a power structure where the writer is really at the bottom of the totem pole. Actually, I think that the writer isn’t even at the bottom of the totem pole—they’re at the part that they stick in the ground, and then there’s the totem pole.

BRUCE JOEL RUBIN

Character is the Very Life of Fiction

Character is the very life of fiction. Setting exists so that the character has someplace to stand. Plot exists so the character can discover what he is really like, forcing the character to choice and action. And theme exists only to make the character stand up and be somebody. 

JOHN GARDNER

There's No Such Thing As Nonfiction

My feeling is that there's no such thing as nonfiction. Everything is fiction, because in the moment someone tries to relate an experience of what happened to them, it's gone. The reality that was felt at the moment is almost impossible to describe. It's one reason why there are writers, to come close to how it felt when it happened.

NORMAN MAILER

The Secret of Getting Ahead

The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.

MARK TWAIN

Daily Newspaper

      Well, there are three days left on my newspaper subscription. I didn't bother renewing it. $350.00 for a year. I hardly read it - just the obituary and the comics, and lately, I have been doing that on my pad. I can go on a comics site and get stacks of them. I read Blondie, Luann and Alley Oop.
      Of course, there other uses for a newspaper, spread on the floor for this or that. Fortunately, there another newspaper in the area that is free. Just pick it up at the supermarket.

Muggy and Hot

Muggy, muggy, muggy. That's the only way to describe the weather. It's 10 AM and I have to go for my walk in a little while.

I was writing for the last little while. "Li'l Warsaw #2" It's at Halloween, so I can have some fun with it. Bullets will still have to fly.

"Britain warns Ecuador it could enter embassy to get Assange." What the heck is going on there? Seems a bit overboard. Winning so many medals at the Olympics has made them go stupid. For any normal size country, this would be war. You can never tell how how such a thing would turn out. Chavez in Venezuels might jump right on that.

Cut my lawn yesterday. Always bag the grass in the front so it doesn't mess up the driveway. That grass was wet and heavy. Didn't have to do a walk.

Took my daughter to the eye doctor yesterday. Found a good place in the mall, lots of room. Afterwards my wife and her went shopping. She was happy about that. They didn't need me dragging around, looking bored. I sat on one of the benches and read my Kindle.



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Hunger Games

Warm today. 25C/77F. I won't be jumping the gun and put away the snow shovel. It's only March. Sat it's supposed to be 6C/43F.

The newspaper is filled with "Hunger Games." No difference than the time of the Roman Empire. Entertainment to keep the nincompoops occupied. I think there are three books, catering to teenage girls. As Col. Klink would say,"You vill vatch this movie and you vill enjoy it."

You know when you get those pictures called "Wal-Mart people?" This morning I was in Wal-Mart. My wife was looking for something while I sat and had a coffee. As I sat there watching everyone, I became a firm believer that there are Wal-Mart people.

I just read the other day that in Sweden they are doing away with paper money. As a point of interest, they were the first to have paper money. So, to get on the bus, you'll need a ticket, or use your cell phone to make a payment. And in church? in church you'll have to swipe your card. Seems to me that might take some time. Then again, how many feed the collection?



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Boxing Day.

I awoke up to the sound of a big truck outside. Oh, oh. Garbage man. Wine and turkey doesn't seem to help a flagging memory. My wife had also heard the truck, a little earlier on, and ran out in her pyjamis, and did the job. I patted her on the back and told her she was a good trooper, after which she answered, "Yeah, sure."

I will tell you that I haven't been entirly lazy in this garbage fiasco. When I looked out the door on Sat. morning, I noticed everyone on the street had their garbage out, and me, being the little sheep that I am, quickly put mine out. But as the day dragged on, I had second thoughts, so I checked the garbage pickup flyer. And there it was in blue and red, Monday is normal pickup day. So I dragged mine back in. I couldn't help but notice, everyone left theirs out, even on Christmas Day.

Last week there was all that ranting about us having a green christmas. Well that didn't happen, got almost a foot of snow on Friday. We ended up shoveling heavy slush and got the driveway cleared out. The snowplow driver decided to give us another swipe, sometimes after midnight. A line of slush across my driveway, which of course was frozen by the time I got up. I hate driving over that ice, I've had ruined tires before.

My wife solved the problem of my Christmas coffee cup. She brought me a new one. It has a house that lights up when the cup gets hot. I guess I will be able to tell when my coffee gets cold.

I didn't do any writing yesterday and now I have all these words in my head I have to get rid of or they will become memories and I'll think they actually happened.

My brother Tony worked all weekend, so is coming over for Christmas dinner today. For him its Christmas dinner, for me it's leftovers. To be truthful, I do love turkey leftovers.

Jack Sakalauskas
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