Updated aphorisms about reading, writing, and rewriting by Richard Seltzer

(excerpt from my unpublished collection of essays, Lenses.

Aphorisms about Reading, Writing, and Rewriting
− The first draft is the cocoon in which the real story matures.
− The need to write fiction is an incurable disease you are born with.
− I write to find out what I think and believe.
− Create characters, not ideas.
− Thinking about your book is the real work. Putting it on paper is easy.
− In rewrite mode − anomalies are opportunities, adding layers to the narrative.
− Sometimes a book happens to you − like you are pregnant with it.
− One measure of the power of an author is how little needs to happen to show the characters undergoing enormous life-shifting changes. the best can tell a story with both subtlety and passion, where a look or a word has the narrative power of an earthquake. By that measure, Penelope Fitzgerald is one of the finest novelists of all time.
− The creative phase of writing is very different from the polishing and editing phase.
− To write something new or to significantly rewrite, I need to find a generative phrase − a line that implies a whole character, a whole life; a line that leads to another line and another and that generates a rhythm that carries the story forward. That's a very different process from analysis and criticism.
− Sometimes a good line is a hazard. You can like a line so much that you keep it, even though it wrecks the flow of the lines around it and of the story as a whole.
− The story is the vessel into which I pour my blood and guts − making exterior what's interior, so I can look at it and try to make sense of it.
− In writing, what is most private and personal is what connects us most with others, for that is what we most have in common.
− The aim is to get to a state of flow in which what matters to you finds external expression, and that external expression triggers in others something resembling your own internal experience.
Poetry happens when a word you would have never expected, turns out to be perfect, and changes how you think forever after.
− Definition of poetry − When words explode in your mind, and that feels good.
− Our self-knowledge and our knowledge of others is limited. Every memoir we write is fictitious in ways we do not fathom. It is more honest to call what we write fiction and to shape the story the way its internal logic demands.
− The characters appear in your dreams and you write down what they say and do; then edit and rewrite. It's their book, not yours. Treat them with respect and follow their advice.
− Once your characters come alive, you are always writing − no matter where you are and no matter what else you might be doing at the same time.
− Publication does not equal success. You have to enjoy writing for its own sake. Half a million people run in marathons in the US each year. Only a couple dozen win. They simply enjoy doing it.
− For me, when the characters come alive and take charge, and I'm just along for the ride − that's an author's high: a wonderful ride.
− When you begin your novel, the characters are your means for telling the story. If and when your characters come alive, the characters become the story.
− Typically, I begin with a critical situation and scene. The I hear the main characters talking in that scene and from that begin to flesh out who they are and some of the scenes and incidents that might have led to that point. Then I decide on an opening scene. Then fill in.
− Aim high. The sky is no limit. Infinity is next to nothing. Just divide anything by zero.
− Typos can be fun in unexpected ways. They often lead to puns and sometimes to stories and novels. They are like random mutations, some of which win in the struggle for survival. My writing would be lifeless without the inspiration of my typos.
− The Tao of Aphasia. To fight aphasia and memory glitches, empty your mind and let thoughts and words enter on their own. The harder you try, the harder remembering becomes. The paths, not the memories themselves wear out. Let your mind open new paths. Control by not controlling.
− As I get older,, I'm noting an ever widening gap between what I intend to do and what I do. I think about what I want to do next; then I watch to find out what I actually do. I've never seen this phenomenon described in a book.
− Editing your own novel is like cutting your own hair. Everything's backward in the mirror of your mind. It can be done, but it takes practice and patience.
-- A novel without time travel is either short-sighted or unrealistic. Aging is time travel, and reading is as well.
-- As I get older, I'm noticing a widening gap between what I intend to do and what I do. I think about what do next, then I watch to find out what I actually do. It seems I'm not entirely in control of the part of me that wills and acts. Watch the gap.
-- Did you ever dream and forget nearly all of it when you work up, but you felt the dream had the clue to what needed to happen in your novel? Don't despair. What matters is the resulting paths of association and where they can lead you. Follow, follow, follow.
-- Clothes do not make a man, nor does a plot make a novel. All depends on the characters, how they see and hear and think and feel, not what they do, but how they do it, who they are.
-- The role of the artist is perceiving the ideal in the real -- like Phidias seeing the finished sculpture in the rough rock. It isn't that the world is broken and imperfect, a mistake. Rather imperfection is a gift, an opportunity for the artist is to continue the act of creation.
-- The most difficult writing challenge is listening carefully to what the characters tell you, and restraining yourself from forcing them to do and say what you want instead of what they want.
-- Rereading Shakespeare is like playing a piece of music.
The pleasure grows as you learn it,
until you can watch it in your mind without looking at the words,
like you can play the music without looking at the score
and then can hear the music without playing it.
-- There are many different ways to write a novel. You need to find one that works for you.
I begin with the idea of a few characters and a few plot points. There are a multitude of ways to connect those few points. If and when the characters come alive to me and I see and feel what may become the opening scene, I start to see more points between the ones I had imagined before. and as the story advances, more and more points appear, and I write notes and dialogue for them and scenes take shape. Then I see more and more points as the story advances; and the closer the points are to one another, the clearer and more inevitable the connections become between the points. The scenes get fleshed out into chapters; and, if I am very lucky, the characters love the story they find themselves in and do what feels natural to them, and the book finishes itself.
-- Don't get caught in the memoir trap. Truth isn't just what happened. And you can never know what really happened. Everything that could happen matters.