Wisdom on writing from Roger Ebert (RIP), echoing Chuck Close, E. B. White, Tchaikovsky, Jack White, and Isabel Allende.
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Assume that on any given day you can accomplish one big mission, three medium tasks, and five small things. Get those done as best you can.
The 1-3-5 rule for more doable to-do lists. Pair with the psychology of what makes an effective to-do list.
Does it matter that what you’ve achieved, with your online special and your tour can’t be replicated by other performers who don’t have the visibility or fan base that you do?
Why do you think those people don’t have the same resources that I have, the same visibility or relationship? What’s different between me and them?
You have the platform. You have the level of recognition.
So why do I have the platform and the recognition?
At this point you’ve put in the time.
There you go. There’s no way around that. There’s people that say: “It’s not fair. You have all that stuff.” I wasn’t born with it. It was a horrible process to get to this. It took me my whole life. If you’re new at this — and by “new at it,” I mean 15 years in, or even 20 — you’re just starting to get traction. Young musicians believe they should be able to throw a band together and be famous, and anything that’s in their way is unfair and evil. What are you, in your 20s, you picked up a guitar? Give it a minute.
Louis C. K. on success and hard work, echoing F. Scott Fitzgerald’s famous words that “nothing any good isn’t hard” and Debbie Millman’s sage advice that “things take a long time; practice patience.”
Good little girls always show marked deference for the aged. You ought never to ‘sass’ old people unless they ‘sass’ you first.
Mark Twain’s Advice to Little Girls.
1. Read, read read! Classic poems for children and adults, books about poetry. Never trust anyone who writes more than he or she reads. Even if you want to write free verse, learn verse forms and metrics until your eyes glaze over. You can break those rules, but only after you have learned them first.
2. Make a dictionary your best friend, no matter how geeky that sounds. Most children will speak only one language in their lifetimes, so why not make your fluency in that language as masterful as you can.
3. If you say you want to be a writer (prose or poetry), I applaud you. The next words out of your mouth should be, “But I promise to be a rewriter!” I don’t even know why we use the word “writer.” All the great writers in the world have been rewriters. So buy yourself a big wastebasket, and keep it filled.
Advice to aspiring poets from J. Patrick Lewis, the current United States children’s poet laureate.
Pair with H. P. Lovecraft’s advice to aspiring writers and Ezra Pound’s list of don’ts for budding poets.
You want to be a writer? Keep writing.
Neil Gaiman on his old cat and writing. Pair with his 8 rules of writing and his timeless advice on living the creative life, then break out the tissues and wash down with Hemingway Shoots His Cat.
The best work in literature is always done by those who do not depend on it for their daily bread and the highest form of literature, Poetry, brings no wealth to the singer.
Make some sacrifice for your art and you will be repaid but ask of art to sacrifice herself for you and a bitter disappointment may come to you.
In a newly discovered letter, Oscar Wilde offers an aspiring writer the secret of literary success, joining our ongoing archive of advice on writing.
Wilde’s words, embedded in which is a poignant addition to history’s finest definitions of art, are reminiscent of Alan Watts’s admonition that money shouldn’t be the object of life, which George Saunders recently echoed.
[Writers] ask me, ‘Is it good to shoot my manuscript to other people to get their advice?’ My answer is, ‘No!’ You are in it for the duration – don’t expect any kind of lowering of the terms of imprisonment that you’re going to have. You are your own editor, and so it’s yours.
Beloved Nigerian author Chinua Achebe talks to Studio 360’s Kurt Andersen. Achebe, celebrated for having put African literature on the world map with his groundbreaking 1958 novel Things Fall Apart, passed away this week at the age of 82.
Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent than in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.
Beauty breeds beauty, truth triggers truth. The cure for writer’s block is therefore to read.
One of Matt Haig’s 30 things that every writer should know, echoing H.P Lovecraft and Jennifer Egan.
Still uncured? Here are some ideas for breaking through your writer’s block.
On studying his chronic fears this man found they fell into five fairly distinct classifications:
1. Worries about disasters which, as later events proved, never happened. About 40% of my anxieties.
2. Worries about decisions I had made in the past, decisions about which I could now of course do nothing. About 30% of my anxieties.
3. Worries about possible sickness and a possible nervous breakdown, neither of which materialized. About 12% of my worries.
4. Worries about my children and my friends, worries arising from the fact I forgot these people have an ordinary amount of common sense. About 10% of my worries.
5. Worries that have a real foundation. Possibly 8% of the total.
How Not To Worry – 1934 guide to mastering life
If a kid realizes how much you love your job, there’s nothing better you can convey to a child.
In her SXSW keynote, the inimitable Tina “Swiss Miss” Roth Eisenberg is a living testament to avoiding “work” by finding your purpose and doing what you love.
Q: Describe the worst boss or client you’ve ever had.
A: Memories like that go into my mental shredder.
Wisdom from a conversation with Tina Roth Eisenberg of Swiss Miss fame, a fine addition to our archive of valuable life advice.
This desire to be together in order to not feel alone is an unfortunate symptom, in my opinion. Every person needs to learn from childhood how to be spend time with oneself. That doesn’t mean he should be lonely, but that he shouldn’t grow bored with himself because people who grow bored in their own company seem to me in danger, from a self-esteem point of view.
