In this space we’ll occasionally post a quote about writing for your consideration. Comments welcome.
“Anybody who can be deterred from writing should be….If I were on the proverbial desert island I would write things and attach them to the back of a Galapagos tortoise in hopes they would get out somewhere.” — Harlan Ellison
And knowing Harlan, I believe he would literally do that.
While I agree with the sentiment, my science brain is questioning which island in the Galapagos archipelago, and are there any other people there, because that tortoise isn’t going to get off whichever island it’s on.
Interesting quote from Harlan. Personally I prefer to encourage writers rather than discourage. However, he’s right that you have to have a relentless drive to write and reach readers, despite the odds.
I love Terry’s response, not that I would ever think of those things.
If I were stranded on a desert island, I’d write 250 words a day in the sand and take a picture of it with my iPhone. (which would be charged by satellite 🙂 ) Then I would email the day’s work to my editor–along with latitude and longitude coordinates of the island. 🏝
Reminds me of the Ray Bradbury short story “In a Season of Calm Weather”. In which the protagonist, a devote Picasso fan, saves his money to take a trip to Italy to view Picasso’s works. While strolling along the beach, he sees a man is drawing in the wet sand with a stick. It’s Picasso, and the protagonist is watching him create a new never before seen masterpiece. It is dusk and he realizes he is to far from his hotel to run and get his camera before the light fades, and the tide is coming in.
I haven’t read “In a Season of Calm Weather,” but I’ll add it to my NTR (Need To Read) doc—which I hope won’t be wiped out by some virus or Windows update glitch.
Hey, I like this idea!
I don’t know what to say about that quote, though, except that maybe you’d have to know WHY the writer was deterred.
Sometimes life just happens.
I’ve seen far too many books by untutored writers, who invariably assume that they are writers, simply because they can type. One had a hissy fit over a two star review, after receiving a long string of five star reviews obviously written only by friends. I’ve studied writing at 7 different institutions. It’s not cheating to study the craft at a school.
“Has the painter not always gone to an art school, or at least to an established master, for instruction? And the composer, the sculptor, the architect? Then why not the writer? Good poets, like good hybrid corn, are both born and made.”–Paul Engle
Another favorite quote:
☺►A committee is a cul-de-sac down which ideas are lured and then quietly strangled. – Sir Barnett Cocks
“When things go right, it’s because they went wrong going wrong.”