From Dorothy Allison’s story Lupus

“‘You ever read that Flannery O’Connor? I got the book from Macon a few years back. Heard she’d had the lupus, thought it might be in there, but God knows it an’t. You read that crazy woman? Made me think people’re worse than I though, and I thought bad enough. But the worst was some of it made me laugh and then made me ‘shamed. Thinking, what kind of woman laughs at such troubles? Babies drowning themselves for Jesus, preachers and old ladies that get their whole familiers shot dead ’cause they forgot the right highway.'”

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”

An excerpt:

I was in love with a man named Cuthbert, Grandma Ignatia said, and, Oh, that man could really eat. He would sit down to the table with a haunch of venison, a whole chicken, two or three gullet breads or a bucket of bangs, half a dozen ears of corn or a bag of raw carrots. He’d eat the whole lot, then go out and work in the field. He was very big, but he was also stone solid—muscle, not fat. He’d grab me up and set me on his lap and talk to me in Michif. He’d call me his peti’ shoo. I was going to marry Cuthbert and had the date of the wedding all picked out, when his sisters tried to turn him against me. They told him that I was after his money, that I wanted his land, and also that I was having sex with the Devil.

Only the last part was true.

An excerpt from the beginning of Maupasssant’s The Necklace:

“She was one of those pretty and charming girls who are sometimes, as if by a mistake of destiny, born in a fmaily of clerks. She had no dowry, no expectations, no means of being known, understood, loved, wedded by any rich and distinguished man; and she let herself be married to a little clerk at the Ministry of Public Instructions.

She dressed plainly because she could not dress well, but she was as unhappy as though she had really fallen from her proper station, since with women there is neither caste nor rank: and beauty, grace, and charm act instead of family and birth. Natural finess, instinct for what is elegant, suppleness of wit, are the sole heirarchy, and make from women of the people the equals of the very greatest ladies.

She suffered ceaselessly, feeling herself born for all the delicacies and all the luxuries. She suffered from poverty of her dwelling, from the wretched look of the walls, from the worn-out chairs, from the ugliness of the curtains. All those things, of which another woman of  her rank would never even been conscious, tortured her and made her angry. the sight of the little Breton peasant, who did her humble housework aroused in her regrets which were despairing, and distracted dreams. she thought of the silent antechambers hung with Oriental tapestry, lit by tall bronze candelabra, and of the two great footmen in knee breeches who sleep in the big armchairs, made drowsy by the heavy warmth of the hot-air stove. She thought of the long salons fitted up with ancient silk, of the delicate furniture carrying priceless curiosities, and of the coquettish perfumed boudoirs made for talks at five o’clock with intimate friends, with men famous and sought after, whom all women envy and whose attention they all desire.”

I think these two quotes say it all.

“Man can believe the impossible, but can never believe the improbable.” -Oscar Wilde

“Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.”  ~Anton Chekhov

You have to create a world for your characters to move around in. One vivid and believable so the reader is willing to following your character as they move around.

As a writer who attempts and fails at writing supernatural fiction, I try to read anything that I can get my hands on. Unable to track down a copy of Robert E. Howard’s work (I know should be easy, but when you are broke you cannot just go out and buy it), I started to read the Eragon series. Now I am only on the first book, and it is no Robert E. Howard, but what author Christopher Paolini does well is setting–though it can get telly at times. Seeing that this is something my stories lack, I hope to learn from him.

The following are the opening paragraphs to the first book:

“Wind howled through the night, carrying a scent that would change the world. A tall Shade lifted his head and sniffed the air. he looked human except for his crimson hair and maroon eyes.

He blinked in surprise. The message had been correct: they were here. Or was it a trap? He weighed the odds, then said icily, “Spread out; hide behind trees and bushes. Stop whoever is coming . . . or die.”

Around him shuffled twelve Urgals with short swords and round iron shield painted with black symbols. they resembles men with bowed legs and thick, brutish arms made for crushing. A pair of twisted horns grew above their small ears. The monsters hurried into the brush, grunting as the hid. soon the rustling quieted and the forest was silent again.”

This passage comes from the first chapter:

“Eragon knelt in a bed of trampled reed grass and scanned the tracks with a practiced eyes. The prints told him that the deer had been in the meadow only half-hour before. Soon they would bed down. His target, a small doe with a pronounced limp in her left forefoot, was still with the herd. He was amazed she had made it so far without a wolf or bear catching her.

the sky was clear and dark, and a slight breeze stirred the air, A silvery cloud drifted over the mountains that surrounded him, its edges glowing with ruddy light cast from the harvest moon cradled between two peaks. Streams flowed down the mountains from stolid glaciers and glistening snowpacks. A brooding mist crept along the valley’s floor, almost thick enough to obscure his feet.”

As I continue to read on I will try to post those passage that strike me.

“Stronger than cold or hunger, stronger than shots and the desire to die, condemned and wandering mere numbers, we were the only men on earth.” Elie Wiesel Night

This is one of the most powerful books I read in high school. As a teacher now it saddens me that people are starting to forget the holocaust. I could have easily quoted many lines from the book, but I choose this one because I think it speaks to a greater idea as well.

I’m not a very good writer, but I’m an excellent rewriter.  ~James Michener

The wastebasket is a writer’s best friend.  ~Isaac Bashevis Singer

Writing came into my life late. I had already been on a path to another profession. However, now I make it a point to write everyday, because it is where my true passions lie.

“Writing is the only thing, that when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing someting else.”

Gloria Steinem

“Writing is the only profession where no one considers you ridiculous if you earn no money.”

Jules Renard

Despite all the hard work that goes into writing, it is well work it. You must put your heart and soul into to. This ensures that the reader will care. In the end it doesn’t matter if you like it, it matter if the reader likes it, because that is who you are writing for after all.

“If you do not breath through writing, if your do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don’t write . . ”

Anais Nin

“Only amateurs say that they write for their own amusement.”