. . .  novelists . . . have, on average, about the same IQs as the cosmetic consultants at Bloomingdales’s department store. our power is patience. We have discovered that writing allows even a stupid person to seem halfway intelligent, if only that person will write the same thought over and over again, improving it just a little bit each time. It is a lot like inflating a blimp with a bicycle pump. Anyone can do it. All it takes is time.

—Kurt Vonnegut, Palm Sunday, 128

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Good writing occurs because a writer passionately desires to say something. . . .
Students do not need more abstract advice about how to write.
They need somehow to have their feelings kindled.

—X.J. Kennedy

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Write simply.
But do not start to think
so damned simply.
Know how complicated it is
and then state it simply.

—Ernest Hemingway

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Almost all really new ideas have
a certain aspect of foolishness
when they are first produced.

—Alfred North Whitehead

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Flip Your Writing Switch

Flip Your Writing Switch

by | Apr 19, 2016 | 0 comments

There is writing, and there is not writing. —David Morley I wanted to share this podcast from the Warwick “Writing Challenges,” because I believe it helps clarify the exact challenge that derails most writers the most often: our inability to sit down and get into the...
How to Deal with the Voices In Your Head

How to Deal with the Voices In Your Head

by | May 5, 2015 | 1 comment

  At least Dr. Jekyll was never both himself and Mr. Hyde at the same time (for more modern readers, that should say, “At least Dr. Banner was never both himself and the Hulk at the same time,” if you catch my drift—who was it that said, “There are no new...