3rd July 2016 | for Creatives | writing, creating in the moment, editing, rewriting, Garth Stein |
"We want the art, that's what we're aiming for. We're aiming to suppress our cautious editor who always tells what to do. I think one of the big writers said, 'Write drunk, edit sober.' I say: Write fat, edit lean. In that first draft, put all the extra stuff in, anything that comes into your head. What happens is we self-edit as we're writing—Oh, that's not going to make it in the final. Don't worry about that. Put it in. It's going to add flavor, and it's going to inform the text. Once you're done with that, then go through and put it on a diet. You know, we want a fat baby. They've got the chubby cheeks, the chubby arms, the chubby fingers—we love that! That's good. When the baby grows up, then we want the lean muscle."
"Imagine sentences instead of writing them... Keep them imaginary until you're happy with them. Revise at the point of composition. Compose at the point of revision. Accept no provisional sentences. Make no drafts. And no draft sentences. Bring the sentence you're working on as close to its final state as you can before you write it down and after. Think of composition and revision as the same thing."
"The first comment I got from my editor was that it was the most linear plot she'd ever read, and she could predict exactly what was going to happen, and I needed to rip the whole thing apart and redo it. So that's where I got with outlining."
"Read the first five pages. Count clichés. If you find one, the buzzer goes off: it's not a serious novel. A serious novelist notices clichés and eliminates them. The serious novelist doesn't write 'quiet as a mouse' or paint the world in clichéd moral terms. You could almost just substitute the adjective 'cliché-free' for 'serious.'"
"I never correct anything and I never go back to what I have written, except to the foot of the last page to see where I have got to. If you once look back, you are lost. ... By following my formula, you write 2,000 words a day and you aren't disgusted with them until the book is finished, which will be in about six weeks."
"The only reason writers publish is to stop rewriting."
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