writing what you don't understand

Freeman Dyson (b. 1923, British-born, American all round brilliant scientific person) said of scientific theories: "You sit quietly gestating them, for nine months or whatever the required time may be, and then one day they are out on their own, not belonging to you any more but to the whole community of scientists. Whatever it is that you produce, a baby, a book, or a theory, it is a piece of the magic of creation. You are producing something that you do not fully understand."

drenched

James Dickey, (b. 1923) who's most famous novel, Deliverance (1970), was made into a movie, also wrote poetry. He said: "A poet is someone who stands outside in the rain hoping to be struck by lightning."

dangerous weapons

"I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let's start with typewriters." ~Frank Lloyd Wright
I love the quote. Plus the idea that something that puts words on a page is dangerous.

Wait. No. Of course this typewriter is dangerous. Imagine what it could do to you if it landed on your head.

I have one of them sitting in the corner of my room. My mum says she loves it and wants it because she learned to type on it. But it's too heavy to pick up let alone transport across the Atlantic. So here it stays sitting there. (But she gets to visit it.)

The other creepy thing about my ancient dangerous typewriter is: it's a typewriter that was around when Hitler was.

This is getting all too creepy. So I'm stopping now. And going back to my extremely dangerous bright green Clairefontaine notebook...

writing for a living--or for life? BIG difference

"There's a difference between writing for a living and writing for
life. If you write for a living, you make enormous compromises....
If you write for life, you'll work hard; you'll do what's honest,
not what pays."

-- Toni Morrison

Posted via email from s@lly l-j

invisible words

"The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible." Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977)

There's a humility in this view point. And it seem to me to be the true one: the view of writer as the servant of the story--whose job is to discover as much as create. To listen and transcribe. The writer basically as scribe. 

It's about the story, not about you the writer.

Do you ever have the feeling that if you don't show up and get those words visible--QUICK--they might just give up on you and go somewhere else to someone who will?

That's motivation to keep showing up. Being available, there, to listen to whatever's happening that day. To whatever your characters are talking about. 

As one editor told me once "Put your characters in a room and listen to what they say."

It's like a show going on in your computer every day. Why would you want to miss that? 

messy desks & genius minds

Albert Einstein's Princeton desk (taken 1955 hours before his death).

Artist John Currin speaking about the process of painting said: 

"... a big part of painting is getting used to things not looking good while you're working on them."

(The exact opposite of that hateful saying "a tidy desk is a sign of a tidy mind" or whatever it is. I prefer a messy desk is a sign of a genius.)

(Can it apply to other areas, I wonder? Like a tip of a kitchen is the sign of a fabulous chef? A mess of a garden is a sign of a brilliant horticulturist? OK. Enough. Stop it.)

Getting used to things not looking good while you're working on them. For me that's when your working on an early draft--say of a picture book--and if you are worrying about how it looks you will clamp down, cramp up and get small and stiff and boring.

You have to keep it playful and messy and far too long. And let it be that way. And be patient. Knowing that when it's time you'll know what belongs and what doesn't. The book will tell you. But if you force it, if you try and tidy it up before it's time, you might be tidying away the best bits. You might be killing it.

Like weeding when you don't know what's a weed or a flower--disastrous. It might be all lovely and clean and tidy and, in the end, just a garden of tidy weeds.

A picture book is like a seed. It grows but in its own time. You can't rush it. You just have to keep showing up each day. Watering it. Tilling the soil. Like a good gardener. And not for too long. For me that's not more than 2-3 hours for an early draft (after that I start unraveling everything I've done because that's the time the chopper and cutter and efficient weeder editor person takes over).

Getting used to things not looking good. That's also something about trust and faith. Following clues. Knowing you're not making it up so much as discovering it. And for that you must be open. There. And listening.

Getting used to things not looking good. Would that include yourself when you're in the middle of creating? Probably. Is that why some writers look a little bit disheveled?

See the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from s@lly l-j

impeccable writers

"The only impeccable writers are those who never wrote." 
— William Hazlitt (1778 - 1830)

Does the impeccable, do you think, refer to the writing as well as or the overall put-togetherness of the writer? (Mr Hazlitt looks pretty impeccable in this picture but perhaps it wasn't a writing day?) Myself, I think sometimes scruffiness could be a good sign. On the page. In person.

In schools one of the best things is to show children your most dreadfully messy first drafts. All scribbed on and scrawled out. The messier the better. To show them you don't get it right first time. Or even most of the time.

And that writing is as much about crossing out and deleting words as writing them.

what is a poem?

An interviewer asked the poet, Annie Finch, how she would explain to a seven-year-old what a poem was, and she said:

"A poem is words that fit together in a special way so it's easy to remember and it sounds like magic."

such the perfect description of a poem.
plus, it kind of is one, too.

Annie Finch, born 1956 in New Rochelle, New York. Her newest book of poetry is Calendars (2003).

The Muse and Being on Time

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (such the cool name) said:

"I sit down to work each morning at 9 a.m., and the muse has learnt to be on time."

 I love that. It debunks the preciousness of writing. And makes it a job. One that you just have to show up and do. Reminds me of what Philip Pullman says of writer's block:

"I don't believe in it. All writing is difficult. The most you can hope for is a day when it goes reasonably easily. Plumbers don't get plumber's block, and doctors don't get doctor's block; why should writers be the only profession that gives a special name to the difficulty of working, and then expects sympathy for it?"

 Oops. It's nearly 9 AM. Time to show up at the desk.

burning and light

"what is to give light must endure burning"

- Viktor Frankl

the Giraffe

The Giraffe

The 2 f's

in giraffe

are like 2 giraffes

running through

the word giraffe

The 2 f's

run through giraffe

like 2 giraffes

From Tulsa Kid,

by Ron Padgett

(poet and translator,

b. 1942)

open every door

"not knowing when the dawn will come I open every door"
emily dickinson

h  a  p  p  y     n  e  w     y  e  a  r    2  0  1  0  !

tension and storytelling

Richard Condon (1915-1996), novelist best known for The Manchurian Candidate (1959) and Prizzi's Honor (1982), said: "I think the most important part of storytelling is tension. It's the constant tension of suspense that in a sense mirrors life, because nobody knows what's going to happen three hours from now."

bad weather

Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.

-John Ruskin, author, art critic, and social reformer (1819-1900)

IN OTHER NEWS:

The Ultimate Guide To Grandmas and Grandpas has won the Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Best Book Award 2009. So maybe now's the time if you have anyone tiny in your family... to get hold of this invaluable handbook on how to look after your grandparents (in case you didn't know you actually need to dance for them, kiss them, hold their hands, let them eat your ice cream, and other lovely things like that...)

More here.

Some Strange Satie Facts

The French composer Erik Satie (1866-1925) gave his piano pieces some odd titles. For instance: "Flabby Preludes (for a Dog)" (1912) and "Three Pieces in the Shape of a Pear" (1903).

 His scores also contain instructions to the performers like "Light as an egg," "With astonishment," or "Work it out yourself." Here some others:

• In the morning, on an empty stomach 
• Hypocritically Crabbed and cantankerous 
• Moderate and very restless 
• Pianissimo, short of breath 
• With a lot of difficulty Run! 

 More? Here are some other Strange Satie Facts:

• he carried a gun in his pocket for protection 
• he wore grey velvet suits and became known as "the velvet gentleman." 
• he detested the sun, and tried to go outside only during bleak days
• he washed only with pumice stone, never soap 
• he "never spoke while eating, for fear of strangling himself," 
• and only ate white foods. His list? Eggs, sugar, shredded bones, animal fat, salt, coconuts, rice, turnips, pastry, cheese (white varieties), cotton salad, and certain kinds of fish

(which one's not true (the first: it was a hammer not a gun)

At the very least this gives us all a free pass today to be as odd as we like (or even odder than usual).

cluttered desks

"If a cluttered desk signs a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?"
—Albert Einstein

Uh-oh. I sort of have an empty desk. All clear and lovely. But the clutter is off to the side. Or pushed to the back. In a neat pile of clutter. So that's alright then. I think. Is it?

who and what and why

"We turn to stories and pictures and music because they show us who and what and why we are." –Madeline L'Engle (1918-2007)

wonder

"The World does not lack for wonders, but only for wonder." –G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936)

fabulousness to share...

I finally got to meet Jago (the fabulous illustrator) last month in Cornwall. Read more here. And if it's all not too exciting for you, then there's also this: The brand new sparkly JESUS STORYBOOK BIBLE website just went live and if you head over there you can download free mp3s of the upcoming audio (read by David--Hercule Poirot--Suchet!) and win books, enter sweepstakes, do Q&A with Jago, David, and all kinds of other lovely stuff like that. And... not only that... but ... steady yourselves... look, I got a delicious super fabulous actual real live copy of the deluxe edition (these photos are Jago's): how cool and classy is that?

bicycle

(photo: man on bike, Berlin, 1920s) H.G. Wells said, "Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race." H.G. (Herbert George) Wells, born in Bromley, England (1866) got a respiratory disease in his 20s and thought he was going to die. So he left his wife, ran away with another woman, and began writing furiously. In about five years, he wrote all the novels for which he is remembered: The Time Machine (1895), The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897), and The War of the Worlds (1898). And then he went on living and writing more science fiction and also a history of the world. He died in 1946 at the ripe old age of 80. Which just goes to prove something but I'm not sure quite what.