“Many young writers hold the conviction that a day will come when they don’t have to do anything but write. When we speak about our “Work,” we mean our writing. We treat this work with reverence and hold it up as the work that makes us who we are: Artists. But beneath the surface of our art is a life largely spent doing other work: basement shifts, rent gigs, and adjunct positions whose earnings shore up our literary work. Day jobs are a mechanism beneath the business of literature. As such, they don’t just pay our bills; they’re what we do with most of our lives. Is there value to be found in a day job beyond its paycheck? Why are writers so eager to leave work behind?”
— Writer Manjula Martin has been a stock girl, used bookseller, seamstress, waitress, retailer, Girl Friday- just to name a few of her day jobs. She questions the value of the artist’s day job in her VQR post. (via millionsmillions)
“Translation is entirely mysterious. Increasingly I have felt that the art of writing is itself translating, or more like translating than it is like anything else. What is the other text, the original? I have no answer. I suppose it is the source, the deep sea where ideas swim, and one catches them in nets of words and swings them shining into the boat…where in this metaphor they die and get canned and eaten in sandwiches.”
— Ursula K. Le Guin, “Reciprocity of Prose and Poetry,” address, 1983 in Poetry Series, Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C. (via asymptotejournal)
“But I still encourage anyone who feels at all compelled to write to do so. I just try to warn people who hope to get published that publication is not all it is cracked up to be. But writing is. Writing has so much to give, so much to teach, so many surprises. That thing you had to force yourself to do—the actual act of writing—turns out to be the best part. It’s like discovering that while you thought you needed the tea ceremony for the caffeine, what you really needed was the tea ceremony. The act of writing turns out to be its own reward.”
— Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (via litverve)
angry in your bones: How to Be a Contemporary Writer
1. Read diversely.
2. Write.
3. See items 1 and 2.
4. Accept that there is no one way to make it as a writer and that the definition of making it is fluid and tiered.
5. Accept that sometimes literary success is political and/or about who you know and that’s not likely to…
Writing References and Prompts: 10 Tricks To Motivate Yourself To Write–Right NOW
via ollinmorales
A writer’s love of writing does motivate us in the long-term, yes. But the dirty little secret is that sometimes writers need a little kick in the butt to get us motivated in the short-term, during the day-to-day battles of the long-long-long drawn out war.
I’m not saying…
