Friday, June 24, 2011

Favorite Lines from Books on Writing

By Jamie Freveletti
Here are some of my favorite lines from books on Writing:
My students assume that when well-respected writers sit down to write their books, they know pretty much what is going to happen because they've outlined most of the plot, and this is why their books turn out so beautifully and why their lives are so easy and joyful, their self-esteem so great, their childlike senses of trust and wonder so intact. Well I do not know anyone fitting this description at all. Everyone I know flails around kvetching and
growing despondent, on the way to finding a plot and structure that work. You are welcome to join the club.
Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott

...your first writing is as delicate as a seedling. Don't show it to some yahoo who wouldn't know an orchid from kudzu.
Making a Literary Life, Carolyn See

If you use a colloquialism or a slang word or phrase, simply use it; do not draw attention to it by enclosing it in quotation marks. To do so is to put on airs, as though you were inviting the reader to join you in select society of those who know better.
The Elements of Style, Strunk and White

Sometimes you just have to be stubborn. No matter how difficult the writing task, how slowly the words come, how altogether discouraging the act of writing seems to be, your stubborn streak keeps you going.
The Daily Writer, Fred White

If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.
Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules of Writing

Just for fun, agree with criticism directed toward you (then watch it go away)
Don't Sweat the Small Stuff...and it's all small stuff, Richard Carlson, PH.D

And my own: enjoy every minute of it.

4 comments:

Lori Rader-Day said...

I love Bird by Bird. I think it's the book I've read the most times. And I'm due for another read.

dissertations said...

My favorite author is Jack London. Beautiful things he wrote!

Sara Paretsky said...

I take comfort from David Remnick's comment several years ago in the New Yorker: There are few writers of value who do not approach the end of a long project with at least some sense of dread, the self-lacerating [belief] that the [work] is not so much finished as abandoned, and that everyone will see all the holes [in it], all the shortcuts, the tape, the glue. Finishing is more about terror than exhilaration.

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