this is on the front page of my WIP to remind me of the core of the story i’m trying to write:
“It’s the lack,
the gap, the absence
and the silence
that fills me
now.
How can so little
take up so much
space
inside of me?
Category: writing
guest post: grandpa, round 5
the end of the month is looming, which means it’s crunch time. i’m saving my words for my MS, so here, have someone else’s words instead of mine. thank you, grandpa for finding these!
Words – so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them. Nathaniel Hawthorne, writer (1804-1864)
Some stories are true that never happened. Elie Wiesel, writer, Nobel laureate (b. 1928)
The finest words in the world are only vain sounds if you cannot understand them. Anatole France, novelist, essayist, Nobel laureate (1844-1924)
human wandering through the zoo / what do your cousins think of you. Don Marquis, humorist and poet (1878-1937)
Our expression and our words never coincide, which is why the animals don’t understand us. Malcolm De Chazal, writer and painter (1902-1981)
When asked them to generate a sentence in which the following three words appear — defence, defeat and detail — the “correct” answer: De horse jumped over defence, first defeat, den detail.
Nature never said to me: Do not be poor. Still less did she say: Be rich. Her cry to me was always: Be independent. Nicolas de Chamfort, writer (1741-1794)
The sense of wishing to be known only for what one really is is like putting on an old, easy, comfortable garment. You are no longer afraid of anybody or anything. You say to yourself, ‘Here I am — just so ugly, dull, poor, beautiful, rich, interesting, amusing, ridiculous — take me or leave me.’ And how absolutely beautiful it is to be doing only what lies within your own capabilities and is part of your own nature. It is like a great burden rolled off a man’s back when he comes to want to appear nothing that he is not, to take out of life only what is truly his own. David Grayson, journalist and author (1870-1946)
In our world of big names, curiously, our true heroes tend to be anonymous. In this life of illusion and quasi-illusion, the person of solid virtues who can be admired for something more substantial than his well-knownness often proves to be the unsung hero: the teacher, the nurse, the mother, the honest cop, the hard worker at lonely, underpaid, unglamorous, unpublicized jobs. Daniel J Boorstin, historian, professor, attorney, and writer (1914-2004)
writing retreat
i’d heard of these things where a bunch of writers travel to a specific locale and do nothing* but write. i’m not entirely sure how i got (a) the label “writer” and (b) an invite to rockport, MA, but i did and i was and i accepted both.
after a weekend of words, i find myself only left with these:
IT. WAS. AWESOME.
and here are these:
the end.
*nothing but eat, drink, listen to music, talk, play games, cook, brainstorm, sleep and write.
guest post: david rakoff
david rakoff was an essayist, a journalist and a frequent contributer to NPR’s “this american life.” he passed away on august 9th.
as is wont to happen when someone passes away, their best moments are quickly strewn across the internet. like this post (yes, about writing. sorry to bore you all non-writers out there). i was blown away by the honesty. and the truth of it.
it’s pretty much how i feel, but thought i wasn’t allowed to feel that way.
*hopes*
team kissy
if the title of this post intrigued you, i suggest you
to read more about it.
that is all.
Abigail Mumford 