Coursekit is now Lore.
What’s the Story?
A discovery engine for meaningful knowledge, fueled by cross-disciplinary curiosity.
A Brain Pickings project edited by Maria Popova in partnership with Noodle.
Twitter: @explorer
writing
LATEST
Writing doesn’t just communicate ideas; it generates them. If you’re bad at writing and don’t like to do it, you’ll miss out on most of the ideas writing would have generated.
Paul Graham, who knows a thing or two about finding your purpose and doing what you love, on how to write well – a fine addition to our ongoing archive of writing advice. Pair with this reading list of famous writers’ collected wisdom on writing.
One writes most of all in order to take part in a collective enterprise.
He woke about 10 o’clock, an hour or more after Stanislaus had breakfast and left the house. Nora gave him coffee and rolls in bed, and he lay there, as Eileen [his sister] described him, “smothered in his own thoughts” until about 11 o’clock. Sometimes his Polish tailor called, and would sit discoursing on the edge of the bed while Joyce listened and nodded. About eleven he rose, shaved, and sat down at the piano (which he was buying slowly and perilously on the installment plan). As often as not his singing and playing were interrupted by the arrival of a bill collector. Joyce was notified and asked what was to be done. “Let them all come in,” he would say resignedly, as if an army were at the door. The collector would come in, dun him with small success, then be skillfully steered off into a discussion of music or politics.
In honor of Bloomsday, James Joyce’s daily routine.
Italo Calvino on writing
A director must be a policeman, a midwife, a psychoanalyst, a sycophant and a bastard.
Billy Wilder, 1960. A year later, young Susan Sontag wrote in her diary that the writer must be four people: the nut, the moron, the stylist, and the critic
Understanding is not a piercing of the mystery, but an acceptance of it, a living blissfully with it, in it, through and by it.
Italo Calvino on writing

I’ve always said there are – to oversimplify it – two kinds of writers. There are architects and gardeners. The architects do blueprints before they drive the first nail, they design the entire house, where the pipes are running, and how many rooms there are going to be, how high the roof will be. But the gardeners just dig a hole and plant the seed and see what comes up. I think all writers are partly architects and partly gardeners, but they tend to one side or another, and I am definitely more of a gardener. In my Hollywood years when everything does work on outlines, I had to put on my architect’s clothes and pretend to be an architect. But my natural inclinations, the way I work, is to give my characters the head and to follow them.

That being said, I do know where I’m going. I do have the broad outlines of the story worked out in my head, but that’s not to say I know all the small details and every twist and turn in the road that will get me there.

A conversation with Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin. Pair with Susan Sontag on the 4 people a great writer must be, then wash down with the collected wisdom of great writers on writing

( Go Into The Story)

Italo Calvino on writing, adding to history’s finest definitions of art.
Italo Calvino on writing – timeless wisdom culled from 40+ years of his freshly published letters.

Italo Calvino on writing – timeless wisdom culled from 40+ years of his freshly published letters.

We must strike down the insidious lie that a book is the creation of an individual soul labouring in isolation. We must strike it down because it threatens the overall quality and breadth of American literature.

[…]

I’m in the book business, the idea-sharing, consciousness-expanding, storytelling business,” said the novelist. “And I am not going to get out of that business. So fuck Ayn Rand and fuck any company that profits from peddling the lie of mere individualism. We built this together and we’re going to keep building it together.

John Green on why he’ll never self-publish.

Let’s not forget the role of a great editor.

Thomas Mann, born June 6, 1875, makes a fine addition to our collected wisdom on writing.

Thomas Mann, born June 6, 1875, makes a fine addition to our collected wisdom on writing.

1. The nut
2. The moron
3. The stylist
4. The critic

Don’t let fear of writing something imperfect or wrong keep you from doing it. It’s key to publish, get feedback, and keep going.

[…]

And if you want to write criticism or commentary, don’t be afraid to ask questions, or evolve publicly. Vulnerability is a vaccine.

Alyssa Rosenberg, echoing David Foster Wallace’s admonition against perfectionism, offers some advice for aspiring writers – some good, like the above, and some questionable, like:

If you’re trying to break in, read everything and everyone on your subject. If you’re a day late on an old idea, you’re not of any use.

The best ideas have no expiration date and what makes them compelling is the particular point of view. Conflating good writing with newsiness is one of the most unfortunate byproducts of writing for a chronology-biased medium like the web.

Complement with the collected wisdom on writing from some of history’s greatest authors.

Novelist Tessa Hadley adds to our ongoing archive of advice on writing.
Complement with this reading list of great writers’ collected wisdom on the craft.

Novelist Tessa Hadley adds to our ongoing archive of advice on writing.

Complement with this reading list of great writers’ collected wisdom on the craft.