My family and I are on the homeward stretch after visiting over ten national parks in the West over the last seven weeks. We’ve made our way from Yosemite to Yellowstone and are now in Denver en route to Tucson. Hard to believe, but this time next week we will be on a plane crossing the Pacific on our way to Australia (!). We are certainly on a huge adventure but, as we still have only limited internet connectivity, I will have to wait until next week’s blog to give a full round up of the trip. Suffice to say we had an incredible experience and one that I hope my twin boys will never forget. They have some fourteen junior ranger badges to remember it by at least! So stay tuned for my full account over the next few weeks…
In the meantime, a question for you – what was the most unforgettable journey you have ever taken? How has it influenced you as a writer? Is there a trip you would love to take and, if so, where? I have warned my husband that Africa is next on my list but I have to say I would be quite happy to retrace our steps from this trip – the national parks are awesome and a true reflection of this amazing country!
Writing Quote for Sunday
Hope you’ve enjoyed our week of writer quotes. We’ll return tomorrow with our regularly scheduled blog. Feel free to revisit the quotes we’ve put up since Monday and add to the conversations.
Here is today’s quote, from that fellow pictured on the right.
“I write to entertain. In a world that encompasses so much pain and fear and cruelty, it is noble to provide a few hours of escape, moments of delight and forgetfulness.” – Dean Koontz
Source: How to Write Best Selling Fiction (1981, Writer’s Digest Books)
Writing Quote for Saturday
Here is today’s quote. Would you give this same advice to someone?
“If you want to write fiction, the best thing you can do is take two aspirins, lie down in a dark room, and wait for the feeling to pass. If the feeling persists, you probably ought to write a novel.” – Lawrence Block
Source: Writing the Novel (1979, Writer’s Digest Books)
Writing Quote for Friday
We are taking the week off, but each day posting a quote about writing to spark discussion. So discuss!
“You must avoid giving hostages to fortune, like getting an expensive wife, an expensive house, and a style of living that never lets you afford the time to take the chance to write what you wish.” – Irwin Shaw
Source: Writers on Writing (1990, Running Press, ed. John Winokur)
Writing Quote for Thursday
Here’s a biggie. A controversial quote from a well respected writer/teacher. What does it say to you?
“I think that the difference right now between good art and bad art is that the good artists are the people who are, in one way or another, creating, out of deep and honest concern, a vision of life . . . that is worth living. And the bad artists, of whom there are many, are whining or moaning or staring, because it’s fashionable, into the dark abyss.” – John Gardner
Source: The Writer’s Chapbook (1989, Penguin, ed. George Plimpton)
Writing Quote for Wednesday
Here is today’s writing quote. Check each day this week for a new one. Don’t forget Monday and Tuesday, either. Reactions?
“When I was younger and first beginning to write, I’d think I was going to get the Pulitzer and the Booker and the Nobel Prize. Now I don’t give a damn. I’m content to know that I write . . . good. I’m a good writer and that’s all I care about.” – Evan Hunter (aka Ed McBain)
Source: Writer’s Digest, Sept. 1996
Writing Quote for Tuesday
As mentioned yesterday, we Kill Zoners are taking a week off, but posting a writing quote each day. Fill up the comments section with your reactions!
Here is today’s quote:
“Do not look toward writing as a profession. Work at something else. Dig ditches if you have to, but keep writing in the status of a hobby that you can work at in your spare time. Writing, to me, is a hobby—by trade I’m a farmer.” – William Faulkner
Source: On Being a Writer (1989, Writer’s Digest Books, ed. Bill Strickland)
Writing Quote for Monday
The Kill Zoners are taking a week off, so each day we’re posting a provocative quote about writing to spark a little discussion. Talk amongst yourselves. Tell us what you think of the quote. Agree? Disagree? Riff on what it might mean to you. You may even find some of us popping in to join the conversation.
Here is today’s quote:
“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.” – Ray Bradbury
Source: Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury
Source: Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury
Twitterati: Is There a Writer Inside You?
James Scott Bell
I’ve been dispensing writing advice on Twitter for a year and a half. You know, 140 characters or less of timeless wisdom on the art and craft of fiction. At least that teaches one to write tight!
So from time to time I’d like to draw on the archives and post a nugget, and start a conversation. Get your feedback. See how we can form a “collective mind.”
In that spirit, here is today’s Twitterati:
Don’t ask, Do I have a book inside me? Ask: Inside, am I a writer? If the answer is yes, write and don’t stop.
Questions:
Do you see yourself as a writer, or do you have doubts? What do you do about them?
What does “being a writer” mean to you?
Is there one book inside you, or are there more where that came from?
Have at it. We’ll talk.
A Leisurely Read
By John Ramsey Miller
I’ve been reading Patricia Highsmith’s “Ripley” novels of late. They were billed as Psychological Thrillers when they were being published, although I read very little of the element of suspense in them. They are rife with black humor. Tom Ripley’s kills are leisurely affairs, and he is hardly even worthy of being labeled psychopathic when measured against today’s villains. Tom Ripley is the amoral and sociopathic protagonist in the series. He is morally and ethically challenged. He is a murderer. He never kills for pleasure, but he will commit a murder for financial gain, or due to a threat to his self-image or one that could alter his status. To his credit, he doesn’t kill every threat that crosses his path, just the more serious ones and only when circumstances are convenient. And this reader pulls for him to kill those threats and I want him to get away clean and to prosper. Having Tom as the protagonist was quite a feat for a book published in the 1950s, not so much when the last one published in the early 90s. By then ass-bite protagonists and thrillers were becoming a dime a dozen.
When Patricia was writing Strangers on a Train (which became a successful Hitchcock film) and other novels and short stories her work was considered low art–crime fiction in the United States, but she was fully appreciated in Europe and put in the ranks of Conrad, Kafka, Dostoevsky, and Camus. In her lifetime she was appreciated but she had to live in Europe to be so.
I enjoy the pacing in her books, her humor, the sudden violence, its aftermath. Tom Ripley is not so good as the cops are incompetent and evidence is rarely gathered or put together. The books are a great relaxing read and very entertaining. Sometimes I just want to read something in 2/4 time.