“Fortunately, these two disciplines—focus and endurance—are different from talent, since they can be acquired and sharpened through training. You’ll naturally learn both concentration and endurance when you sit down every day at your desk and train yourself to focus on one point. This is a lot like the training of muscles I wrote of a moment ago. You have to continually transmit the object of your focus to your entire body, and make sure it thoroughly assimilates the information necessary for you to write every single day and concentrate on the work at hand. And gradually you’ll expand the limits of what you’re able to do. Almost imperceptibly you’ll make the bar rise. This involves the same process as jogging every day to strengthen your muscles and develop a runner’s physique. Add a stimulus and keep it up. And repeat. Patience is a must in this process, but I guarantee results will come.”
writing
/ˈrʌɪtɪŋ/
noun
1. the activity or skill of writing.
“parents want schools to concentrate on reading, writing, and arithmetic”
2. the activity or occupation of composing text for publication.
“she made a decent living from writing”
the task of the modern writer
“The role of the imaginative writer has flipped in our time.
Previously the imaginative writer was supposed to produce fictions; however, we are now completely surrounded by fictions. We’re surrounded by advertisements, by artificial environments.
The role of the author now is to create realities, to discover realities perhaps.”
James Joyce, Ulysses: autograph manuscript, “Circe” episode. [Fall, 1920] EL4. J89ul 922 MS
EL4. J89ul 922 MS
Final line of Ulysses by James Joyce.
“…I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.”
Seven and a half minutes worth of writing
reblogging nearsightedmonkey:
“People have been looking for the timing videos for Lynda Barry’s Writing the Unthinkable excercises. Here is the one for seven and a half minutes worth of writing.
OK LET’S GO! BUT BEFORE YOU START THE VIDEO….. STEP ONE:
First write ten nouns on ten little pieces of paper. Any nouns will do! Cake! Fire! Teeth! Ticket! Etc!
Number a page from one to ten
Relax your whole body from top to bottom and say the alphabet to yourself or something else you have memorized and think back to early days in your life….
turn over one of the pieces of paper and write down the first ten images… sort of like snapshots…. that come to you from that word
Read the list over
Circle one that seems vivid or has trouble in it and write it on a clean sheet of paper like it was a title to a story and then draw a big X on the page.
NOW start the video.”
The Voices in Philip K. Dick’s Head
Please Learn to Write
james joyce and the hotel porter
[Said Joyce:] ‘A German lady called to see me today. She is a writer and wanted me to give an opinion on her work, but she told me she had already shown it to the porter of the hotel where she stays. So I said to her: “What did your hotel porter think of your work?” She said: “He objected to a scene in my novel where my hero goes out into the forest, finds a locket of the girl he loves, picks it up and kisses it passionately.” “But,” I said, “that seems to me to be a very pleasing and touching incident. What did your hotel porter find wrong with it?” And then she tells me he said: “It’s all right for the hero to find the locket and to pick it up and kiss it, but before he kissed it you should have made him wipe the dirt off it with his coat sleeve.” ‘
I told her,’ said Joyce ‘(and I meant it too), to go back to that hotel porter and always to take his advice. “That man,” I said, “is a critical genius. There is nothing I can tell you that he can’t tell you.” ‘
— Frank Budgen (1934)
via ragbag
Breakfast
Story I wrote and submitted to STS:
The Ort materialized on the old wooden stool next to Daisy’s highchair as Sandra gave Daisy her breakfast. It’s saggy bulk made the old thing creak, it was the oldest piece of furniture they had.
Daisy chortled merrily to see the creature, and then she bagan spooning the porridge into her mouth. The Ort burped encouragingly, looked over at Sandra, then returned it’s attention to the feeding human infant.
The toddler and the creature giggled together, then Daisy took up banging the highchair table with her spoon and the Ort dripped residue onto the linoleum.
Sandra and Alan had become aware their child was communicating with an invisible entity as soon as she started talking. At first they believed it to be a passing phase, but when the Ort started assuming an actual physical form it began having a serious effect on their marriage.
Alan was convinced he was losing his mind, Sandra tried reassurring him, no, it was real, the thing was real and it was happening to them. Soon, Alan was demanding they call the authorities to have it “removed”, but predictably the Ort failed to appear at mealtimes if any third party was present, and the more calls they made, the more Sandra felt that they were risking having their only child taken away from them. So she insisted they stop the calls.
It was soon after this Alan left them. He maintained he had fallen in love with the receptionist at his new work and had decided to move on. Sandra wasn’t even sure they had a receptionist at his new work. She found the idea amusing.
It made life simpler not having him around anyhow. The Ort was much less agitated with Alan gone, and, consequently, the stink it gave off mellowed.
Sandra finished mixing Daisy’s drink, looking across she caught the Ort’s blank stare, it nodded at her encouragingly. She placed the drink in front of Daisy, the Ort farted it’s approval and Sandra turned to the sink.
Paul Greer 