WoW Saturday

Both "writers on writing" and "words of wisdom" can be shortened with the same word. Thus, welcome to WoW Saturdays, June to September 2011. Enjoy this collection of writers quotes throughout the summer.

 

"I love writing.  I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions."

- James Michener

 

They say writing is lonely work. But that's an exaggeration. Even alone at their desks, writers entertain visitors: characters of a novel, famous and not so famous figures from the past. On good days, all these come to the table. On bad days, however, only unwelcome visitors appear: The specter of the third-grade teacher who despaired of your penmanship. The ghost of the first person who told you that spelling counts. The voice of reason pointing out that what you are about to attempt has already been done — and done far better than you might even hope.

- Allegra Goodman

 

The novelist may be the last to know the theme of her work, may even have avoided thinking about it too particularly, lest, like happiness, it disappear on too close examination or seem too thin and flimsy to live.

- Diane Johnson

 

There is never enough time for writing; it is a parallel universe where the days, inconveniently, are also 24 hours long. Every moment spent in one's real life is a moment missed in one's writing life, and vice versa.

To write is to understand why Keats writes of living "under an everlasting restraint, never relieved except when I am composing." It is to recognize Kafka's longing to be locked in the innermost room of a basement, with food anonymously left for him. It is to know why Alice Munro describes the face of the artist as unfriendly; and it is to envy Philip Roth, who, rumor has it, has sequestered himself in a cabin in the Berkshires. He is writing, writing, people say, writing without distractions, only writing. To which the news part of us asks: Is that a life? Can you really call that a life? That is our sanity speaking. But another part, the writer part, answers, yes.

- Jen Gish

 

Writing fiction is not about first love, that blush of self-love when you discover your name in print. It's about passion and endurance, a combination of desire and grunt work often at odds with each other. More like a long marriage? Yes, the rekindling of the love of writing and a commitment to the solitary hours finding the word, tone, style — and may I mention the meaning? — why you are telling this story that will become a book with its pages.

- Maureen Howard