Monthly Archives: October 2022

Humor, Writing

Responding to The Quotes of Known Writers: The Sequel (AKA Yes, I was a class clown)

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I just had so much fun I had to do it again.

Before you ask the answer is yes. Yes, I am a wise-ass and yes I was a class clown. Social media is a great outlet for me.

Here is another look at some quotes on writing by well known writers and my comments in response.

“We’re past the age of heroes and hero kings. … Most of our lives are basically mundane and dull, and it’s up to the writer to find ways to make them interesting.”
—John Updike


“What about writers whose lives are mundane and dull? I need to up my game and cultivate some really bad habits.”
-Dan

“Each writer is born with a repertory company in his head. Shakespeare has perhaps 20 players. … I have 10 or so, and that’s a lot. As you get older, you become more skillful at casting them.”
—Gore Vidal

“I also have a company of players in my head. I’ve lost track of the number but my psychiatrist is keeping a running total.”
-Dan

‘When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, ‘I am going to produce a work of art.’ I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing.”
—George Orwell

“When I sit down to write a book. I say to myself I am going to tell a big lie. It’s a lie because hell I write fiction.”
-Dan

“I don’t care if a reader hates one of my stories, just as long as he finishes the book.”
-Roald Dahl.

“I don’t care if a reader hates one of my stories, just as long as he doesn’t find out where I live.”
-Dan

“If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it. Or, if proper usage gets in the way, it may have to go. I can’t allow what we learned in English composition to disrupt the sound and rhythm of the narrative.”
—Elmore Leonard

“I learned nothing in English composition so I have that going for me.”
-Dan

“Write. Rewrite. When not writing or rewriting, read. I know of no shortcuts.”
—Larry L. King

“Write. Rewrite. Read. Hey, how am I supposed to find time to drink?”
-Dan

“Remember: Plot is no more than footprints left in the snow after your characters have run by on their way to incredible destinations.”
—Ray Bradbury

“My plots look like a great violent struggle occurred in the snow and then someones dog came by and peed on it.”
-Dan

Humor

Brief thoughts on writing (my reaction to great literary minds)

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Hemingway

“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed,”

-I’m afraid that one day I will discover the hard way that I am a hemophiliac and write my own ending.

Ursula K. LeGuin

“Writing makes no noise, except groans, and it can be done everywhere, and it is done alone.”

– ….and you can’t get arrested for it, not yet.

Robert Heinlein

“Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.”

-Am I doing it wrong?

Sedaris

“Writing gives you the illusion of control, and then you realize it’s just an illusion, that people are going to bring their own stuff into it.”

-Just leave your stuff at home people. You have too fricking much of it. (I just added “fricking” to my dictionary. It might as well learn it and stop bothering me.)

Franz Kafka

“Writing is utter solitude, the descent into the cold abyss of oneself.”

-I have nothing to add. He lived a tragic life and who am I to pile on.

Henry Miller

“Writing is its own reward.”

-Ok, he had a lot of sex with hot women and it influenced his writing. I have a hard time thinking that he did it solely for the reward of writing. Any hot actresses want to have an affair with me? Really, I am just trying to become a better writer.

Doris Lessing

“I’ve always disliked words like ‘inspiration.’ Writing is probably like a scientist thinking about some scientific problem or an engineer about an engineering problem.”

-Um, no. Sorry Doris, I was an engineer for over thirty years and it’s nothing like writing. Inspiration is definitely appropriate when it comes to writing. Hey I stayed away from the word “fricking”.

Harlan Ellison

“People on the outside think there’s something magical about writing, that you go up in the attic at midnight and cast the bones and come down in the morning with a story, but it isn’t like that. You sit in back of the typewriter and you work, and that’s all there is to it.”

-Now you tell me, what do I do with all the bones in my loft?

Catherine Drinker Bowen

“Writing, I think, is not apart from living. Writing is a kind of double living. The writer experiences everything twice. Once in reality and once in that mirror which waits always before or behind.”

-Um, no. If I were experiencing anything close to what I write about I wouldn’t be writing fiction. I couldn’t write about my life. Living it once is putting me to sleep.

Jules Renard

“Writing is the only way to talk without being interrupted.”

-Well they didn’t have duct tape back then.


Jules Renard (Yea he was prolific when it came to useless thoughts)

“The truly free man is the one who can turn down an invitation to dinner without giving an excuse.”

-I don’t think there is anything wrong with giving excuses. Is it wrong to say “I won’t be hungry two weeks from now”? Beats the hell out of directly insulting the chef.

Perhaps one day my words will inspire people….to get me committed.

This may become a series, or not. It could go either way.