veronica_rich: (writer's block)
veronica_rich ([personal profile] veronica_rich) wrote2008-07-28 09:30 pm

So much truth

Commandeered from [livejournal.com profile] poetic_self's LJ. Samuel R. Delany: About Writing

Writers are people who write. By and large, they are not happy people. They're not good at relationships. Often they're drunks. And writing -- good writing -- does not get easier and easier with practice. It gets harder and harder -- so eventually the writer must stall out into silence.The silence that waits for every writer and that, inevitably, if only with death (if we're lucky the two may happen at the same time: but they are still two, and their coincidence is rare), the writer must fall into is angst-ridden and terrifying - and often drives us mad. (In a letter to Allen Tate, the poet Hart Crane once described writing as "dancing on dynamite.") So if you're not a writer, consider yourself fortunate.

(I think I'm going to add this to my LJ's introductory post.)

[identity profile] hippediva.livejournal.com 2008-07-29 04:55 am (UTC)(link)
Happy writers tend to have next-to-nothing interesting to offer fiction, at least from what I can tell. I think 'happy writer' and I think of all those poor trees that died to put those godawful 'Chicken Soup' books on the shelves. LOL! It takes a real freak to write decent fiction---and a patient one! *snerk*