Books on writing

Dark Thoughts On Writing, by Stanley Wiater is a collection of quotes, and
observations from fifty men and women who make money from their writing. That
means they are professional writers.

I hate sheep. To be blunt, I am wary of people who don't think for themselves, and
so following anyone's advice comes to me only after much consideration.

Dark Thoughts On Writing is a collection of quotes gathered into eleven catagories.
I'll take one quote from each catagory, and then maybe say a couple things, then shut up.

Category:

1.) Basic Influences

I'm fascinated by writers because I learned from them, and I loved them. I don't
understand writers who are not madly in love with other writers. I'm a Library
person. I never made it to college, so I educated myself at the library. I spent
days in there, and months, and years. At least twice a week for ten years - - from
the time I was 18 till I was 28 - - educating myself all by books. Reading in every
section of the library - - over in philosophy, in history, in essays, in poetry - -
you name it! So therefore the library is my home. That's where I was born!

And my love for certain authors is so immense - - I carry Shaw with me wherever I
go, I carry Shakespeare. Alexander Pope. I go back and reread the great writers
because they teach you, they're really superb. We have really very few writers alive
today that are as good as they are. - Ray Bradbury

2.) Working In The Dark

The assumption I always have when I'm writing is this happened. This is real. I have to describe it to the reader, but it's not something I'm making up. It really happened- Ira Levin

3.) Short Story, Novel, or Script?

With a novel, you have this great mass of material, with subplots and multiple
characters, that must be compressed for the screen. A book can blend in all
directions, like a pretzel. But a script has to have a direct dramatic arc which
must build crest, and then pay off in the end. - William F. Nolan

4.) Regarding Fame and Fortune

There is a level that I tend to get pigeon-holed as a horror writer. But, then again, anybody who knows anything about my body of work knows that isn't all I do. And Sandman isn't even particularly horror. So I can't really think of any way it's popular success affected me adversely. It generates an interesting body of fans, 99% of whom are quite wonderful. And 1% of whom take it all a little too far and assume that I am privy to a body of wisdom denied to the commonality of mortals. Now that's a little difficult to deal with . . . - Neil Gaiman

5.) Going to the Movies

You have to be prepared to speak to your vision, even if it does not suit certain
individuals, and know that when you make movies, you have to work with other people.
You have to share your vision with others, and say: "Listen, come with me on this
adventure." You hope to find producers sympathetic to that. You hope to find actors
and special effects people who will give their life's blood to make that happen.
Most of the time you're disappointed. - Clive Barker

6.) Sex and Death and Other Unspeakable Concerns

I don't believe there can be such a thing as "bad taste". There can only be bad writing. You can have the most outrageous scene with the most extreme violence, and handle it in such a way that it'll be extremely excrutiating - but there will be no blood. So I don't think there can be any bad taste in creating a scene, only bad writing in handling it. - Robert R. McCammon

7.) Censored

I don't censor myself at all when I write. I think as soon as you do that, you're finished. - David Cronenberg

8.) Personal Fears and Practical Philosophies

. . .I have interests other than writing. I don't just live to put paper in the typewriter. I like to spend time with my wife and my kids. There's a lot of things I'm interested in that I try to devote time to, because I think you can get very stale as a writer. Those people who just live to write eventually repeat themselves. Besides, what kind of a life is that? Go out and get a life! - Joe R. Lansdale

9.) Shocking Advice

When you mail out a manuscripit, you are not turning in a paper for a grade. You
can mail out a perfectly wonderful and publisshable novel and have it rejected ten
times. And the reasons it's rejected is because you hit ten different people who for
varying reasons don't want to work with this idea. YOu have to keep going. You have
to never interupt rejections from New York publishers as a failing grade. They are
not failing grades/ They mean almost nothing. - Anne Rice

10.) The Function and Importance of Unpleasant Truths
In a larger sense, we may all be spending our entire lives writing only one story, the finest story we know: one with ourselves as hero rqather than victim or arch- enemy. As D.W. Griffith said, "What you get is a living, what you give is a life." It's up to each of us to try and make it worth reading - or living. - Dennis Etchison

11.) Where Do You get Your Ideas?

At Bloomingdale's, on the escalator, there were a couple of nuns in their habits.
And one off the nun's habits actually got caught in the thing. In real life, what
happens is that there's a little do-hickey that halts the apparatus. But I quickly
whipped out my little notebook and jotted the incident down. It later appeared in
Playboy - the one where the people are being ground into the
escalator. It was something that was simply too good not to use later as a cartoon. - Gahan Wilson

In the introduction to the book, the author describes meeting the people in this
book, and asking them the questions aabout writing. The questions were never
included in the articles he wrote about them, but the questions, and answers, were
of interest to him as a writer. So, these are quotes from writers, in answer to a
writer's questions about writing.

Focused mainly in the "dark genrés", the book is a visit with writers on writing. I
found it worth my while reading.

- -
Okay,
Father Luke