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Most important of all was his advice that I should not follow any of his suggestions ‘just because I suggested them.’ He emphasized that I should only carry out those suggestions ‘that ring a bell with you.’ He said I should not write or change anything simply because he (or any other editor or writer) suggested it unless the suggestions fit my own intention and vision for the book.”
Looking back at Vonnegut’s assignments at the Writers’ Workshop now, I see that more importantly than the craft of writing, they were designed to teach us to do our own thinking, to find out who we were, what we loved, abhorred, what set off our trip wires, what tripped up our hearts.
Every writer feels inept. Even Kurt Vonnegut. Just stick to your chair and keep on typing.
Find a subject you care about and which you in your heart feel others should care about [italics mine]. It is this genuine caring, and not your games with language, which will be the most compelling and seductive element in your style.
It is this genuine caring, and not your games with language, which will be the most compelling and seductive element in your style.
How do you keep from rambling? How do you “keep it simple”? Take Vonnegut’s fourth piece of advice: “Have the guts to cut.”
If a sentence, no matter how excellent, does not illuminate your subject in some new and useful way, scratch it out.16
Rather than strangle the inclinations, curbing the flow and squelching the possibility of unearthing the diamonds that might result, scratch out the excess after your first draft’s wanderings and flourishes.
First write full tilt, without examining what you’re writing. Let it alone for a period of time. Then read it with fresh eyes, edit and revise it. Repeat this process, ad infinitum if necessary, until you’re satisfied that it’s finished.
Why have the guts to cut? For strength. Uncluttered by distracting riffraff, fewer words, when accurate, pack more punch.
All… varieties of speech are beautiful, just as the varieties of butterflies are beautiful. No matter what your first language, you should treasure it all your life. If it happens to not be standard English, and if it shows itself when you write standard English, the result is usually delightful, like a very pretty girl with one eye that is green and one that is blue.
“I keep losing and regaining my equilibrium, which is the basic plot of all popular fiction. And I myself am a work of fiction,”
“You have to sit there,” as Kurt said. “It’s physically uncomfortable, it’s physically bad for someone to sit still that long, and it’s socially bad for a person to be alone that much. The working conditions are really bad. Nobody has ever found the solution to that.”
So a writer is someone who is willing to be uncomfortable enough—or is uncomfortable enough by nature—to wonder where people are, where they’re going, and why they’re going there. A writer is willing to take risks for that wondering. A writer cares that much about his or her subject.
Be kind to yourself. Give yourself room. There are years to go. Don’t pummel yourself with expectation. Go easy. Your material will eventually find its way to voice.
Writers can’t write great things all the time. You do the best you can, then you have to move on. Otherwise you’ll end up writing the same book your whole life.
You do not have to experience death or destruction or agony to write. You simply have to care about something. Perhaps what you care about is joyful.
Writers can be redeemers.
Never lose that enthusiasm. So many writers are unenthusiastic about their work.
Four pieces of advice: Recognize the blind spot. Call it out. Keep your eyes on your own prize. Expect change.
Late in his life, Vonnegut wrote: Do you realize that all great literature… [is] all about what a bummer it is to be a human being? (Isn’t it such a relief to have somebody say that?)
If you’re a writer or an artist of any kind, your self-expression will ring a bell with some other self. You can count on that.
A plausible mission of artists is to make people appreciate being alive at least a little bit.
Ask any artist, anyone accomplishing anything of value: patience, perseverance, and work, those humble virtues, rate at least as high as talent on the list of necessary equipment, any day.
Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.
Select names that convey the associations you want your reader to make, consciously or unconsciously, and those appropriate for your character’s background, status, century, and so on. In other words, find the visual and audial mot juste.
As he became well known, he could tease his readers with inside info. He created his own world, recycling his characters’ names so they seem familiar. After you’ve written many novels and become famous, you can do that too.
Miriam was annoyed by my conversation at one point, and she said scornfully, “You won’t open your mouth unless you can make a joke.” It was true. Joking was my response to misery I couldn’t do anything about.
This is what I find most encouraging about the writing trades. They allow mediocre people who are patient and industrious to revise [italics mine] their stupidity, to edit themselves into something like intelligence. They also allow lunatics to seem saner than sane.
People confuse your personhood with your persona. They fear you, demand things of you, project and expect.
I never knew a writer’s wife who wasn’t beautiful.
Sometimes I don’t consider myself very good at life, so I hide in my profession.
said that in the grand scheme of things we were scarcely older than each other. From our point of view there seemed to be a colossal difference, but in the bigger picture he was perhaps half a second ahead of me, if that… and that we were both experiencing the same things at the same time for the first time. Like our dog dying was a first for both of us. That he had no more of a handle on things than I did. This was really news to me. I thought it was just a matter of time before he let me in on what he knew.
