Taradiddle

"The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense."

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 06:45:11 -0400

“The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.”

- Tom Clancy(via dominilucy)(via enamour)(via figuremeout)(via bigfun)

alanajoy: if it doesn’t come bursting out of youin spite of everything,don’t do it.unless it comes...

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 23:55:00 -0500

alanajoy:

if it doesn’t come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don’t do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it for money or
fame,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don’t do it.
if it’s hard work just thinking about doing it,
don’t do it.
if you’re trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.
if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.

if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you’re not ready.

don’t be like so many writers,
don’t be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don’t be dull and boring and
pretentious, don’t be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don’t add to that.
don’t do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don’t do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don’t do it.

when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.

there is no other way.

and there never was.

— Bukowski

Truman Capote

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 22:09:45 -0500

waksays:

INTERVIEWER
What are some of your writing habits? Do you use a desk? Do you write on a machine?

CAPOTE
I am a completely horizontal author. I can’t think unless I’m lying down, either in bed or stretched on a couch and with a cigarette and coffee handy. I’ve got to be puffing and sipping. As the afternoon wears on, I shift from coffee to mint tea to sherry to martinis. No, I don’t use a typewriter. Not in the beginning. I write my first version in longhand (pencil). Then I do a complete revision, also in longhand. Essentially I think of myself as a stylist, and stylists can become notoriously obsessed with the placing of a comma, the weight of a semicolon. Obsessions of this sort, and the time I take over them, irritate me beyond endurance.

Via The Paris Review, Issue 16, 1957, via Daily Routines

"Writing is like hammering coal out of the earth; revising is like eating cheese and crackers on the..."

Thu, 15 Jan 2009 10:04:28 -0500

“Writing is like hammering coal out of the earth; revising is like eating cheese and crackers on the couch.”

- AU Professor Jonathan Loesberg, 01/14/09 (via girlindc) (via 24freedinners) (via suicideblonde)

Cory Doctorow: Writing in the Age of Distraction

Fri, 09 Jan 2009 20:49:20 -0500

Cory Doctorow: Writing in the Age of Distraction :

asie:

katespencer:

grutty:

Sage advice for the modern writer.

Esp. the bit about TK’ing it instead of getting lost in a Google search

"All writers are vain, selfish, and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a..."

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 15:08:22 -0500

“All writers are vain, selfish, and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery… One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand. For all one knows that demon is simply the same instinct that makes a baby squall for attention. And yet it is also true that one can write nothing readable unless one constantly struggles to efface one’s own personality.”

- George Orwell, in “Why I Write.” (From Mise en Abyme). (via mills)(via fatmanatee) (via peterwknox)

(via tmblg)

Sat, 20 Dec 2008 09:31:38 -0500

(via tmblg)

"Write or Die is a web application that encourages writing by punishing the tendency to avoid..."

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 12:08:34 -0500

“Write or Die is a web application that encourages writing by punishing the tendency to avoid writing. Start typing in the box. As long as you keep typing, you’re fine, but once you stop typing, you have a grace period of a certain number of seconds and then there are consequences.”

- Consequences:

Gentle Mode: A certain amount of time after you stop writing, a box will pop up, gently reminding you to continue writing.

Normal Mode: If you persistently avoid writing, you will be played a most unpleasant sound. The sound will stop if and only if you continue to write.

Kamikaze Mode: Keep Writing or Your Work Will Unwrite Itself

Write Or Die: Putting the “Prod” in Productivity!

(via tarts & unicornology)(via glynnis)

Terrifying.

(via peterwknox)

As a young person, I could never date anyone named Medea. They...

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 16:07:50 -0500

As a young person, I could never date anyone named Medea. They would have said, “Ha ha, she’ll burn your next wife to death and butcher your children and feed them to you. Or something.”

Kids can be so cruel.

"the only way you can write the truth is to assume that what you create will never be read."

Sat, 08 Nov 2008 07:35:04 -0500

“the only way you can write the truth is to assume that what you create will never be read.”

- margaret atwood (via ryanluikens)

aberjona: This show is so well written. Which makes sense, I...

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 17:02:41 -0500

aberjona:

This show is so well written. Which makes sense, I suppose. Behold Wordgirl—from the planet Lexicon—and her sidekick, Captain Huggy Face. Who, it so happens, is a chimp.

President Obama - washingtonpost.com

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 17:03:57 -0500

President Obama - washingtonpost.com:

Excellent editorial from the editors of the Post.

Advice from a person with a BA in psychology

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 15:13:12 -0400

Advice from a person with a BA in psychology:

“Jason Roeder really did earn a bachelor’s degree in psychology. Then he sort of wandered off. The following counsel is not meant to substitute for professional therapy, psychotropic medications, the endorphin surge of a long run, taking a bubble bath, yelling at a waitress so you’ll feel like a big man, or going to Urban Outfitters and shaking a Magic 8 Ball that you’re not actually going to buy.”

butterflyeffect: WAY too good. I’m still laughing. WATCH...

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 22:52:21 -0400

butterflyeffect:

WAY too good. I’m still laughing. WATCH THIS.

mabelmoments:

Eddie Izzard’s Death Star Canteen (in Lego!)

"Language stands to speech like a pattern in relation to the garments that can be produced from it,..."

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 11:51:45 -0400

“Language stands to speech like a pattern in relation to the garments that can be produced from it, like a musical score in relation to the actual performances of the work, like the rules of chess in relation to the playing of specific chess games. All these analogies emphasize the abstract characteristics of language. But the chess analogy probably best illuminates its rule-governed character.”

- Martin Montgomery, An Introduction to Language and Society xvi (1986)

likemice: Bon IverSkinny Love

Mon, 01 Sep 2008 09:51:05 -0400

likemice:

Bon Iver
Skinny Love

Kurt Vonnegut: How to Write With Style

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 01:00:00 -0400

Kurt Vonnegut: How to Write With Style:

asie:

cubicle17:

Why should you examine your writing style with the idea of improving it? Do so as a mark of respect for your readers, whatever you’re writing. If you scribble your thoughts any which way, your readers will surely feel that you care nothing about them. They will mark you down as an egomaniac or a chowderhead —- or, worse, they will stop reading you.

mm-clam chowdah.

A is for Audience.
B is for Be Thoughtful.
C is for Cookie.
That’s good enough for me.

Devastating

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 23:54:00 -0400

confessionizer:

I should have married you. Perhaps my life would be different, perhaps my life would be happier today. Perhaps my life would have been on a better path. If only I could turn back time, I’d spend it with you.

"I think ultimately we shouldn’t worry too much about what ideas young adult books promulgate. We..."

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 16:09:11 -0400

“I think ultimately we shouldn’t worry too much about what ideas young adult books promulgate. We should worry about whether the books themselves are awesome. Because awesomeness promotes thinking, and thinking promotes becoming the kind of adult we all want more of in the world: the kind who can understand the message of a book — or a movie, or a blog post, or a presidential candidate — and decide for herself whether she agrees.”

- Jezebel (via peterwknox)

All in favor of critical thinking skills, say, “Hey!”

asie: (via topherchris) Love. Walter. Sobchak.

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 16:45:52 -0400

asie:

(via topherchris)

Love. Walter. Sobchak.