Saturday, April 22, 2006
Books on Writing
My writing has dropped off lately. There are several reasons for this.
If you know my other blog, my work-related blog, I might go into detail there about the 11, 12 hour work days. Weekends. I stopped writing blogentries at work a while ago -- it would no longer be considered by mangement to be a 'fun pasttime'.
At home, when I'm not too tired, I've been renting movies and, if I like them, pull apart the film through its script, camera work, direction.
Recent favorites: Pretty Persuasion and HUD.
I've also been reading. Books on writing.
On Writing and the Novel: Essays by Paul Scott, edited by Shelley C. Reese. Scott is best known for The Raj Quartet, which became the 1980s Masterpiece Theater ("Theatre"?) series The Jewel in the Crown.
I never read any of those books and only caught a scene or two of the series, British matrons sipping drinks on terraces and men in World War II uniforms, talking about a thing or a place named Mayapore, but I enjoyed many of the essays in this book. It affirmed the creative process.
Scott had two related ways of creating a story. One, he imagined a particular subject he wanted to write about and waited for a series of images to come, or, Two, he acted upon an image or series of images that floated into his mind to create a story. It is so simple.
The 'essays' were a mixed bag, not all are of equal interest, and they seem to lessen in focus away from writing as you continued in the book, but it ended well and ending well is always good. (This book was one of last year's public book sale purchases and I'm quite pleased with it for $ .50.)
I've just begun reading the second book. A Moveable Feast, by Ernest Hemingway, published after his death. So far, it's a page-turner.
Although the book is a memoir of his time in 1920s Paris, it has already offered insight into his writing technique: "Do not worry. . . . All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know."
Hemingway would spend all day writing, writing about what he knew, and during this time that was writing about Michigan and feeling he could depict Michigan more truthfully from a distance in Paris. At the end of a day, he would finish a story or a thought and put writing out of his mind altogether until the following morning, when he was fresh and perhaps a thought or idea would have crystalized overnight. He has also, tantalizingly, mentioned an editing process, and I hope he goes into more detail about that later on!
If you know my other blog, my work-related blog, I might go into detail there about the 11, 12 hour work days. Weekends. I stopped writing blogentries at work a while ago -- it would no longer be considered by mangement to be a 'fun pasttime'.
At home, when I'm not too tired, I've been renting movies and, if I like them, pull apart the film through its script, camera work, direction.
Recent favorites: Pretty Persuasion and HUD.
I've also been reading. Books on writing.
On Writing and the Novel: Essays by Paul Scott, edited by Shelley C. Reese. Scott is best known for The Raj Quartet, which became the 1980s Masterpiece Theater ("Theatre"?) series The Jewel in the Crown.
I never read any of those books and only caught a scene or two of the series, British matrons sipping drinks on terraces and men in World War II uniforms, talking about a thing or a place named Mayapore, but I enjoyed many of the essays in this book. It affirmed the creative process.
Scott had two related ways of creating a story. One, he imagined a particular subject he wanted to write about and waited for a series of images to come, or, Two, he acted upon an image or series of images that floated into his mind to create a story. It is so simple.
The 'essays' were a mixed bag, not all are of equal interest, and they seem to lessen in focus away from writing as you continued in the book, but it ended well and ending well is always good. (This book was one of last year's public book sale purchases and I'm quite pleased with it for $ .50.)
I've just begun reading the second book. A Moveable Feast, by Ernest Hemingway, published after his death. So far, it's a page-turner.
Although the book is a memoir of his time in 1920s Paris, it has already offered insight into his writing technique: "Do not worry. . . . All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know."
Hemingway would spend all day writing, writing about what he knew, and during this time that was writing about Michigan and feeling he could depict Michigan more truthfully from a distance in Paris. At the end of a day, he would finish a story or a thought and put writing out of his mind altogether until the following morning, when he was fresh and perhaps a thought or idea would have crystalized overnight. He has also, tantalizingly, mentioned an editing process, and I hope he goes into more detail about that later on!