M.C. Frank's Blog, page 48

funnytwittertweets:

funnytwittertweets:

ousia-poetica:In the streets there are bookstores but no...

ousia-poetica:

In the streets there are bookstores but not everyone enters. chelseablecha

siir-poesia:

siir-poesia:

eliamatrell:— WENDELL BERRY, “A Meeting.”

eliamatrell:

— WENDELL BERRY, “A Meeting.”

metamorphesque:musings on hope Keep reading

metamorphesque:

musings on hope

Keep reading

petermorwood:yubsie:greenvillegreengirl:rsfcommonpla...

petermorwood:

yubsie:

greenvillegreengirl:

rsfcommonplace:

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you know what actually pisses me off? when I finally start to feel a smidge of confidence in my writing ability and then some JERK POSTS A SINGLE LINE FROM A TERRY PRATCHETT NOVEL AND IT’S BETTER THAN ANYTHING I WILL EVER WRITE NO MATTER HOW MANY MILLENNIA I SPEND TRYING!

Terry was a professional writer from the age of 17. He worked as a journalist which meant that he had to learn to research, write and edit his own work very quickly or else he’d lose his job.

He was 23 when his first novel was published. After six years of writing professionally every single day. The Carpet People was a lovely novel, from a lovely writer, but almost all of Terry’s iconic truth bomb lines come from Discworld.

The Colour of Magic, the first ever Discworld novel was published in 1983. Terry was 35 years old. He had been writing professionally for 18 years. His career was old enough to vote, get married and drink. We now know that at 35 he was, tragically, over half way through his life. And do you know what us devoted, adoring Discworld fans say about The Colour of Magic? “Don’t start with Colour of Magic.”

It is the only reading order rule we ever give people. Because it’s not that great. Don’t get me wrong, very good book, although I’ll be honest I’ve never been able to finish it, but it’s nowhere near his later stuff. Compare it to Guards Guards, The Fifth Elephant, the utterly iconic Nightwatch and it pales in comparison because even after nearly 20 years of writing, half a lifetime of loving books and storytelling Terry was still learning.

He was a man with a wonderful natural talent, yes. But more importantly he worked and worked and worked to be a better writer. He was writing up until days before he died.  He spent 49 years learning and growing as a writer, taking so much joy in storytelling that not even Alzheimer’s could steal it from him. He wouldn’t want that joy stolen from you too.

Terry was a wonderful, kind, compassionate, genius of a writer. And all of this was in spite of many many people telling him he wasn’t good enough. At the age of five his headmaster told him that he would never amount to anything. He died a knight of the realm and one of the most beloved writers ever to have lived in a country with a vast and rich literary tradition. He wouldn’t let anyone tell him that he wasn’t good enough. And he wouldn’t want you to think you aren’t good enough. He especially wouldn’t want to be the reason why you think you aren’t good enough. 

You’re not Terry Pratchett. 

You are you.

And Terry would love that. 

I only ever had a chance to talk to Terry Pratchett once, and that was in an autograph line.  I’d bought a copy of The Carpet People, which was his very first book, and he looked at it with a faint air of concern.  “You realise that I wrote that when I was very young,” he said, in warning.

“Yes,” I said.  “But I like seeing how authors grow.”

He brightened and reached for his pen.  “That’s all right then,” he said, and signed.

There’s a collection of Pratchett’s short fiction that includes the very first piece he ever published.

This collection came out while he was still alive and each piece has an introduction from him. The introduction for that piece includes something to the effect of “LALALA IF I DO THIS I WON’T HEAR YOU READING THIS ONE!!”

Exact wording may be off but it very much starts with LALALA.

That collection’s title is “A Blink of the Screen”; any library should have it or be able to get it easily from another branch.

Here’s the intro in question:@yubsie​ got it almost exact.

I had my own first publication in our school mag too. I was fourteen, with everything that implies. It was nothing like as good as Terry’s, and distance hasn’t lent enchantment to the view.There are no extant copies that I can show; not that I would if I could. Be grateful… :-P

Later in the same anthology, there’s this:

A writer can get inspiration from anywhere, whether it’s something seen / heard in the street, or a snippet of unconnected news, or even chatting in a bar with other writers - who don’t keep ideas secret, there’ll be another one along in a minute, and sometimes they’re like buses so a whole bunch arrive at once. Especially in that sort of company…

And some ideas just demand to be told to specific people, along the lines of let’s see what (insert name) does with it.

IIRC, “Hollywood Chickens” was one of those. :->

hexglyphs:my last two brain cells

hexglyphs:

my last two brain cells

adrasteiax:“The moonbeam and the storm,⁠The summer eve d...

adrasteiax:

“The moonbeam and the storm,⁠The summer eve divine,The silent night of solemn calm,⁠The full moon’s cloudless shine,”

— Emily Bronte, from O Dream, Where Art Thou Now? in “The Complete Poems Of Emily Bronte”

adrasteiax:“All those nights looking up at the sky, want...

adrasteiax:

“All those nights looking up at the sky, wanting to be thereAway from the grief of being here”

— Charles Wright, from To Giacomo Leopardi In The Sky in “The Other Side Of The River”

alexiaugustin:hanya yanagihara one of the greatest writer...

alexiaugustin:

hanya yanagihara one of the greatest writers of all time fr because she didn’t want to be famous or well liked, she wanted to be daring and controversial. she knew that she could have written one of these sensationally loved found family, friends to lovers, hurt/comfort, happy ever after tropes book that would have really hit with people on tiktok and youtube but instead she wrote “he knows now: people don’t change. he cannot change” and “between the ecstasy of being aloft and the anticipation of his landing, which he knows will be terrible, he knows that x will always equal x, no matter what he does” and she knew that some people would hate her for writing that. she did not censor out any horrifying reality of some people’s lives, nor was she trying to make a book about trauma and abuse an easy read even though she knew that people would absolutely despise her for the perspective she provided. other authors can write books all they want but as long as authors care more about getting “must read tiktok sensation” stickers stuck onto their books rather than going back to understanding the purpose of art and literature, nobody’s going to write crack cocaine literary pieces like a little life ever again.