1、FROM SUSANS BACK YARD:Writers on Writing youllnever get in that way.w “Almost every single thing you hope publication willdo for you is a fantasy, a hologramits the eagle onyour credit card that only seems to soar. Whats real isthat if you do your scales every day, if you slowly tryharder and harder
2、 pieces, if you listen to great musi-cians play music you love, youll get better.”GETTING STARTED.w “Start with your childhood. Flannery OConnor saidthat anyone who survived childhood has enoughmaterial to write for the rest of his or her lifeRemember that you own what happened to you.w “Almost all
3、good writing begins with terrible firstefforts. You need to start somewhere Start by gettingsomethinganythingdown on paper. A friend ofmine says that the first draft is the down draftyou just get it down. The second draftis the up draftyou fix it up. Youtry to say what you have to say moreaccurately
4、. And the third draft is thedental draft, where you check every tooth,to see if its loose or cramped ordecayed, or even, God help us, healthy.w “Perfectionism means that you trydesperately not to leave so much messto clean up. But clutter and mess showus that life is being lived. Clutter is won-derf
5、ully fertile groundyou can still discovernew treasures under all those piles, clean thingsup, edit things out, fix things, get a grip. Tidinesssuggests that something is as good as its goingto get. Tidiness makes me think of held breath,of suspended animation, whilewriting needs to breathe and moveS
6、o go ahead and make big scrawlsand mistakes. Use up lots of papermesses are the artists true friend.”BUILDING CHARACTER worryabout being absent or fraudulent.w “In this dark and wounded society, writing can giveyou the pleasures of the woodpecker, of hollowing outa hole in a tree where you can build
7、 your nest and say,This is my niche, this is where I live now, this is whereI belong. And the niche may be small and dark, but atlast you will.be dealing with the one thing youvebeen avoidng all alongyour wounds. This is verypainful. It stops a lot of people early on who didnt getinto this for the p
8、ain. They got into it for the moneyand the fame. So they either quit, or they resort to atype of writing that is sort of like candy making.“To participate requires self-disclipline and trust andcourage, because this business of becoming conscious,of being a writer, is ultimately about askingyourself.How alive am I willing to be?”
