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Daniel Quinn:
I have embarked on a mission this year to read at least three books a month. From January-April, I will be reading 14 of your books...some for the second time, but most of them will be my first time around. I am so excited! I am about 90 pages into "The Holy," and it's utterly fascinating. Aside from reading as much as one can, what other snippet of advice can you give aspiring writers to focus on while writing?
Daniel Quinn
From time to time I keep counting my books (having forgotten the number I came up with last time). Since, to get fourteen, you must have included the short storiy collection, At Woomeroo, you may as well include A Newcomer's Guide to the Afterlife (a collaboration).
John Galsworthy wrote: "I did not begin to write novels until I had forgotten all I had learned at school and college." Partly what you learn there is that writers produce Worthy Books, Literature; getting past that isn't easy; for some aspiring writers, this becomes the obstacle of a lifetime. Another thing you learn there is how to read like a student, it took me several years to forget that, to learn how to read like a reader—not for a grade but for pleasure. Having forgotten all this, Galsworthy (and I) had to learn to read like a writer. Every published short story is a graduate course in how to write short stories; every published novel is a graduate course in how to write novels.
André Gide wrote; "What another would have done as well as you, do not do it. What another would have said as well as you, do not say it, written as well as you, do not write it. Be faithful to that which exists nowhere but in yourself--and thus make yourself indispensable." The writing of Ishmael was twelve years spent in being faithful to that which existed nowhere but in myself. The same is generally true of all my other books, the exception being Dreamer, which any number of others would have written as well as I did. The Holy is the best of my novels (simply as a novel)—and no one else would even have imagined writing it.
In a folder called "Books in Work" I have one called The Education of a Novelist ; it's been there for a dozen years at least (and will probably be there for another dozen). I would rather write a novel than write a book about writing novels!
In order to preserve my sanity, I don't publish my email address here, but I can be reached through www.ishmael.org.
John Galsworthy wrote: "I did not begin to write novels until I had forgotten all I had learned at school and college." Partly what you learn there is that writers produce Worthy Books, Literature; getting past that isn't easy; for some aspiring writers, this becomes the obstacle of a lifetime. Another thing you learn there is how to read like a student, it took me several years to forget that, to learn how to read like a reader—not for a grade but for pleasure. Having forgotten all this, Galsworthy (and I) had to learn to read like a writer. Every published short story is a graduate course in how to write short stories; every published novel is a graduate course in how to write novels.
André Gide wrote; "What another would have done as well as you, do not do it. What another would have said as well as you, do not say it, written as well as you, do not write it. Be faithful to that which exists nowhere but in yourself--and thus make yourself indispensable." The writing of Ishmael was twelve years spent in being faithful to that which existed nowhere but in myself. The same is generally true of all my other books, the exception being Dreamer, which any number of others would have written as well as I did. The Holy is the best of my novels (simply as a novel)—and no one else would even have imagined writing it.
In a folder called "Books in Work" I have one called The Education of a Novelist ; it's been there for a dozen years at least (and will probably be there for another dozen). I would rather write a novel than write a book about writing novels!
In order to preserve my sanity, I don't publish my email address here, but I can be reached through www.ishmael.org.
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