Everyone needs to kick themselves in the head every now and then, so feel free to help me out with this. 1.You are NOT Hunter S. Thompson 2.Nor are you William S. Burroughs. 3.You are really really really not James Joyce! 4.Story, plot, structure and characters are very very important. 5.Yes it sounds pretty, but where is it going? 6.Just because you feel like writing, it does not mean that you are inspired. 7.Aimless navel-gazing is only fun while it lasts. 8.Do not set your opening scene in a coffee shop. 9.Nothing will ever be good enough, just try to get it to make sense. 10.DO NOT EXPECT PEOPLE TO AUTOMATICALLY UNDERSTAND YOU. YOU NEED TO EXPLAIN EVERYTHING VERY CLEARLY. 11.If you have to choose between boring but lucid and beautiful but obscure... always choose boring but lucid. Anyone else?
I agree with everything that you said including not being James Joyce but that is the one person I am very happy to not be. He is the worst kind of writer, complicated for the sake of being complex and he was an insufferable prick from what I have read. Anyway, good advice. Im glad to see someone thinking around here. Pith
Aggggghhh!!! You had to go and harp on James Joyce! He was not complex for the sake of being complex, he was complex for the sake of creating an amazing work of art that totally redefined the boundaries of literature as well as creating an almost unnaturally intimate portrait of the human mind. And who cares if he was a prick? I`d rather be a prick that wrote Ulysses than some nice guy who wrote `My alienated, cancer-stricken father and the beautiful peach tree his father planted in the backyard on the day he was born`.
Try reading "Gravity's Rainbow" or anything by William Burroughs or Faukner and then you would see what a realy great writer can do with the english language. Their complexity astouds me and it is that way for a reason, to try and get a colse as one can to capturing the pure human mind on paper. James Joyce wrote three novels in his entire life, it took him ten years to write Finigan's Wake for crying out loud and when asked about this by a newspaper at the time he said "It took me ten years to write so it should take someone without my abilitys twenty years to read" give me a break, he was pushing boundries that had already been pushed, read Swans Way sometime, and had the nerve to put out difficult novels simply because he could. It should not take anyone ten years to create a novel if they are truly blessed with a comand of the English language and an understanding of human nature. Three books in a 45 year span! What a hack!
I understand every point, apart from number 8. Why can't you start a book in a coffee shop? Sorry if I sound thick, but is it an in-joke between authors? And does the term cofee shop apply to a cafeteria/ cafe, or does the term include those shops where people actually buy coffee to drink at home? Because if it is, then it should also include the coffee section of all supermarkets . And some petrol (Am. gas) stations that stock it. And perhaps some restaurants. What if they were having tea? Is that acceptable? Hot chocolate? Horlicks?
The more you talk about writing on an internet forum the less actual writing you get down to doing... ~
