novel writing

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 can be summed up in three rules. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.

There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.

is ruined by education. Teaching has ruined more American novelist than drink.

Teaching has ruined more American novelist than drink.

is being as unconscious as possible and to do so by inducing in the self a state of perpetual lethargy, to fall into habit and to strive not to spook that very shy and illusive spirit, the imagination.

a novelist's chief desire is to be as unconscious as possible. He has to induce in himself a state of perpetual lethargy. He wants life to proceed with the utmost quiet and regularity. He wants to see the same faces, to read the same books, to do the same things day after day, month after month, while he is writing, so that nothing may break the illusion in which he is living - so that nothing may disturb or disquiet the mysterious nosings about, feelings around, darts, dashes, and sudden discoveries of that very shy and illusive spirit, the imagination.

is not easy. The main thing is not the feeling that one can write it, but that it exists on the far side of a gulf untraversible by words, and that it must be pulled through in a breathless anguish.

I believe that the main thing in beginning a novel is to feel, not that you can write it, but that it exists on the far side of a gulf, which words can't cross: that it's to be pulled through only in a breathless anguish.

is to be undertaken as if you were going to be beheaded the day you finish the book.

Every author ought to write every book as if he were going to be beheaded the day he finished it. F. Scott Fitzgerald

is not as easy as it looks. People in every walk of life think they can write novels, a delusion which seems to be especially prevalent among novelists.

A publisher is reported as saying that people in every walk of life think they can write novels. The delusion seems to be especially prevalent among novelists.

is easy. Anyone could write one given six weeks, pen, paper, and no telephone.

Anyone could write a novel given six weeks, pen, paper, and no telephone or wife.

is difficult and finishing a book is just like you took a child out in the back yard and shot it.

Finishing a book is just like you took a child out in the back yard and shot it.

novel writing, n.Memes

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