Tough talk from Philip and Gary . . . and sweet from David
I love a stern talking-to. If I’m not giving one to myself, I’m wanting it from others.
So on a day when I was supposed to be working on my rewrites and instead spent too many hours indulging a cold I’m pretending I don’t have, I found a few gems from writers telling me to get back to work.
From Philip Pullman, author of one of my favorite series of all time, His Dark Materials:
“The most valuable thing I’ve learned about writing is to keep going, even when it’s not coming easily. You sometimes hear people talk about something called ‘writer’s block.’ Did you ever hear a plumber talk about plumber’s block? Do doctors get doctor’s block? Of course they don’t. They work even when they don’t want to. There are times when writing is very hard, too, when you can’t think what to put next, and when staring at the empty page is miserable toil. Tough. Your job is to sit there and make things up, so do it.”
And from Gary Paulsen, author of over 175 novels (!), including the wonderful Hatchet, this:
Living in the remote Minnesota woods, Paulsen eventually turned to the sport of dogsled racing, and entered the 1983 Iditarod. In 1985, after running the Iditarod for the second time, he suffered an attack of angina and was forced to give up his dogs. “I started to focus on writing with the same energies and efforts that I was using with dogs. So we’re talking 18-, 19-, 20-hour days completely committed to work. Totally, viciously, obsessively committed to work, the way I’d run dogs. . . . I still work that way, completely, all the time. I just work. I don’t drink, I don’t fool around, I’m just this way. . . . The end result is there’s a lot of books out there.â€Â
Somehow I don’t see either of these guys putting up with even a little bit of whining. “But I’m sick!”
“That’s bull! Get back to work, you pathetic, miserable . . .”
“All right! Sirs! I’m going!”
****
On the other hand . . .
This is what David Mamet says, and David Mamet–playwright, screenwriter, genius, legend (The Verdict, The Edge, Heist, The Spanish Prisoner, etc.–that guy)–ought to know what he’s talking about:
“[O]ne may write only an hour a day, but that hour can’t be scheduled in advance–it may come as part of a day devoted to reading, or napping, or skyvving off, but the writer has to spend a lot of time alone and quiet before he’s capable of recognizing the difference between an idea and a good idea.”
So maybe a little down time isn’t so bad? Huh, guys?
“Get back to work! You lazy, feeble, good-for-nothing. You calling yourself a Mamet? You calling yourself Pullman or Paulsen? You think we got here by napping, you sorry excuse for a–”
“Okay! Okay! I’m going!”
More later. Gotta go write.
Technorati Tags: Writing, Publishing, Philip Pullman, His Dark Materials, Gary Paulsen, Hatchet, David Mamet