Outdoor Journal Kit by Rite in the Rain

Outdoor Journal Kit by Rite in the Rain

Categories: writing, journal, design,
Endless Notes Notepad

Endless Notes Notepad

Categories: design, writing, notepad,
Bandolier Journal Strap

Bandolier Journal Strap

Categories: journal, writing, pen, design,
Raymond Carver and/or Gordon Lish

Raymond Carver and/or Gordon Lish

theparisreview: “The fiction I’m most interested in has lines of reference to the real world. None of my stories really happened, of course. But there’s always something, some element, something said to me or that I witnessed, that may be the starting place. Here’s an example: ‘That’s the last Christmas you’ll ever ruin for us!’ I was drunk when I heard that, but I remembered it. And later, much later, when I was sober, using only that one line and other things I imagined, imagined so accurately that they could have happened, I made a story—‘A Serious Talk.’ But the fiction I’m most interested in, whether it’s Tolstoy’s fiction, Chekhov, Barry Hannah, Richard Ford, Hemingway, Isaac Babel, Ann Beattie, or Anne Tyler, strikes me as autobiographical to some extent. At the very least it’s referential. Stories long or short don’t just come out of thin air. I’m reminded of a conversation involving John Cheever. We were sitting around a table in Iowa City with some people and he happened to remark that after a family fracas at his home one night, he got up the next morning and went into the bathroom to find something his daughter had written in lipstick on the bathroom mirror: ‘D-e-r-e daddy, don’t leave us.’ Someone at the table spoke up and said, ‘I recognize that from one of your stories.’ Cheever said, ‘Probably so. Everything I write is autobiographical.’ Now of course that’s not literally true. But everything we write is, in some way, autobiographical. I’m not in the least bothered by ‘autobiographical’ fiction. To the contrary. On the Road. Céline. Roth. Lawrence Durrell in The Alexandria Quartet. So much of Hemingway in the Nick Adams stories. Updike, too, you bet. Jim McConkey. Clark Blaise is a contemporary writer whose fiction is out-and-out autobiography. Of course, you have to know what you’re doing when you turn your life’s stories into fiction. You have to be immensely daring, very skilled and imaginative and willing to tell everything on yourself. You’re told time and again when you’re young to write about what you know, and what do you know better than your own secrets? But unless you’re a special kind of writer, and a very talented one, it’s dangerous to try and write volume after volume on The Story of My Life. A great danger, or at least a great temptation, for many writers is to become too autobiographical in their approach to their fiction. A little autobiography and a lot of imagination are best.” —Raymond Carver, The Art of Fiction No. 76

theparisreview:

“The fiction I’m most interested in has lines of reference to the real world. None of my stories really happened, of course. But there’s always something, some element, something said to me or that I witnessed, that may be the starting place. Here’s an example: ‘That’s the last Christmas you’ll ever ruin for us!’ I was drunk when I heard that, but I remembered it. And later, much later, when I was sober, using only that one line and other things I imagined, imagined so accurately that they could have happened, I made a story—‘A Serious Talk.’ But the fiction I’m most interested in, whether it’s Tolstoy’s fiction, Chekhov, Barry Hannah, Richard Ford, Hemingway, Isaac Babel, Ann Beattie, or Anne Tyler, strikes me as autobiographical to some extent. At the very least it’s referential. Stories long or short don’t just come out of thin air. I’m reminded of a conversation involving John Cheever. We were sitting around a table in Iowa City with some people and he happened to remark that after a family fracas at his home one night, he got up the next morning and went into the bathroom to find something his daughter had written in lipstick on the bathroom mirror: ‘D-e-r-e daddy, don’t leave us.’ Someone at the table spoke up and said, ‘I recognize that from one of your stories.’ Cheever said, ‘Probably so. Everything I write is autobiographical.’ Now of course that’s not literally true. But everything we write is, in some way, autobiographical. I’m not in the least bothered by ‘autobiographical’ fiction. To the contrary. On the Road. Céline. Roth. Lawrence Durrell in The Alexandria Quartet. So much of Hemingway in the Nick Adams stories. Updike, too, you bet. Jim McConkey. Clark Blaise is a contemporary writer whose fiction is out-and-out autobiography. Of course, you have to know what you’re doing when you turn your life’s stories into fiction. You have to be immensely daring, very skilled and imaginative and willing to tell everything on yourself. You’re told time and again when you’re young to write about what you know, and what do you know better than your own secrets? But unless you’re a special kind of writer, and a very talented one, it’s dangerous to try and write volume after volume on The Story of My Life. A great danger, or at least a great temptation, for many writers is to become too autobiographical in their approach to their fiction. A little autobiography and a lot of imagination are best.”

—Raymond Carver, The Art of Fiction No. 76

I need to build a writing studio like this. Probably can’t afford Travis Price Architects.

I need to build a writing studio like this. Probably can’t afford Travis Price Architects.

"This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It’s like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety. Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony. I use short sentences. And I use sentences of medium length. And sometimes, when I am certain the reader is rested, I will engage him with a sentence of considerable length, a sentence that burns with energy and builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of the drums, the crash of the cymbals–sounds that say listen to this, it is important."

Gary Provost (via atomos)

Truth

When the writing is good, I mean dead on, character arc comes without you even realizing. Take the most recent episode of Boardwalk Empire, for example. There’s the exchange at the Bar Mitzvah when the fella with the beard tells young Al Capone why he should be wearing a yarmulke. A few scenes later, just by a simple change to his clothing, we see the next step in his transformation. Clearly, I’m off from work this week.

When the writing is good, I mean dead on, character arc comes without you even realizing. Take the most recent episode of Boardwalk Empire, for example.

There’s the exchange at the Bar Mitzvah when the fella with the beard tells young Al Capone why he should be wearing a yarmulke. A few scenes later, just by a simple change to his clothing, we see the next step in his transformation.

Clearly, I’m off from work this week.