false 42683 1 "Throughout Ernest Hemingway's career as a writer," says Larry W. Phillips in his introduction to <I>Ernest Hemingway on Writing</I>, "he maintained that it was bad luck to talk about writing." Hemingway seems to have courted bad luck. Phillips has amassed a slender book's worth of Hemingway's reflections on writing, culled from letters, books, interviews, speeches, and an unpublished manuscript. These musings are arranged into topics such as "Advice to Writers," "Working Habits," and "Obscenity" (of which there is plenty here). Sometimes ponderous, other times offhand, these thoughts form a portrait of a man driven to create not solely the best writing he could, but the best writing, period. Hemingway craved exactness, both in his work and in the work of others; he strove to make every word necessary. "Eschew the monumental," he wrote to Maxwell Perkins in 1932. "Shun the Epic. All the guys who can paint great big pictures can paint great small ones." His aim? Mere perfection. "I write one page of masterpiece to ninety one pages of shit," he confided to F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1934. "I try to put the shit in the wastebasket." <I>--Jane Steinberg</I> 42152 6 7 1999 Ernest Hemingway on Writing total:190|5:61|4:68|3:52|2:8|1:1| 190 750 244 20 5 0 false false Fri Jul 24 16:27:57 -0700 2009 Fri Jul 24 16:31:36 -0700 2009
---

In a letter to Malcolm Cowley in 1945 he wrote:

Been working every day...more...]]> 3 0 false false Wed Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Apr 19 10:02:07 -0700 2009 Sun Apr 19 10:19:55 -0700 2009 I'm going to have to confess that I've tried and tried to like Hemingw...more...]]> 3 0 false false Thu Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Oct 04 08:33:46 -0700 2009 Sun Oct 11 12:16:37 -0700 2009
Although I have always enjoyed Hemingway, his style of writing is dated. In his era, his style was short, curt, and to the point. In today's fictional writing world, his work would be discarded. Today, the publishing world seems to want long, drawn out narrative,...more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri Dec 26 22:13:31 -0800 2008 Fri Dec 26 22:14:05 -0800 2008 3 0 false false Sun Jun 03 02:37:54 -0700 2007 Sun Jun 03 02:40:00 -0700 2007 In our Time), lived as Nick lived and died as Nick would die! Laconic but efficient, compendious but moving. Wishing for peace he lived...more...]]> 0 0 false false Fri Sep 18 12:13:41 -0700 2009 Fri Sep 18 12:14:21 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Sat Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Fri Dec 14 13:54:45 -0800 2007 Fri Dec 21 20:37:48 -0800 2007 more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Thu Dec 13 08:50:24 -0800 2007 Thu Dec 13 08:51:51 -0800 2007 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sat Apr 18 19:36:29 -0700 2009 Thu May 28 10:20:23 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Mon Mar 31 14:47:20 -0700 2008 Mon Mar 31 14:48:25 -0700 2008 Mom gave me this for Christmas or a birthday a while ago. Every now and then I take it down and read a few pages, after a few years of doing that, the book winds up being read.]]> 4 0 false false Sat Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2000 Sun Apr 06 18:30:04 -0700 2008 Sun Apr 06 18:31:09 -0700 2008 4 0 false false Wed Jun 04 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed May 28 11:58:49 -0700 2008 Sat Jun 07 11:49:19 -0700 2008 5 0 false false Sun Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Jul 31 14:13:20 -0700 2008 Mon Dec 29 00:07:34 -0800 2008 5 0 false false Tue Jul 14 18:34:13 -0700 2009 Tue Jul 14 18:34:53 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Mon Sep 01 09:53:06 -0700 2008 Mon Sep 01 09:55:29 -0700 2008 4 0 false false Sun Nov 04 10:47:19 -0800 2007 Sun Nov 04 10:48:03 -0800 2007 4 0 false false Tue Jan 22 09:23:00 -0800 2008 Tue Jan 22 09:23:24 -0800 2008 0 0 false false Sun Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Tue Jun 05 19:23:22 -0700 2007 Sat Jun 16 23:50:08 -0700 2007 5 0 false false Thu Feb 28 09:04:46 -0800 2008 Thu Feb 28 09:05:02 -0800 2008 3 0 false false Mon Sep 07 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Sep 03 13:46:42 -0700 2009 Mon Sep 07 11:26:44 -0700 2009