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Kindle Notes & Highlights
The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shockproof, shit detector. This is the writer’s radar and all great writers have had it.
Find what gave you the emotion; what the action was that gave you the excitement. Then write it down making it clear so the reader will see it too and have the same feeling that you had. That’s a five finger exercise.
As a man you know who is right and who is wrong. You have to make decisions and enforce them. As a writer you should not judge. You should understand.
Listen now. When people talk listen completely. Don’t be thinking what you’re going to say. Most people never listen. Nor do they observe. You should be able to go into a room and when you come out know everything that you saw there and not only that. If that room gave you any feeling you should know exactly what it was that gave you that feeling. Try that for practice. When you’re in town stand outside the theatre and see how the people differ in the way they get out of taxis or motor cars. There are a thousands ways to practice. And always think of other people.
The best way is always to stop when you are going good and when you know what will happen next. If you do that every day when you are writing a novel you will never be stuck. That is the most valuable thing I can tell you so try to remember it.
If you get a noble communist remember the bastard probably masturbates and is jallous [jealous?] as a cat. Keep them people, people, people, and don’t let them get to be symbols.
Prose is architecture, not interior decoration, and the Baroque is over.
Only two things you can do for an artist. Give him money and show his stuff. These are the only two impersonal needs.
What difference does it make if you live in a picturesque little out house surrounded by 300 feeble minded goats and your faithful dog Black Dog? The question is: can you write?
