TREASURE!
Today I stumbled upon this collection of short clips from the Writer’s Confessions series: writers talking about the writing process. They’re good! I watched them all… Here are some of my favorite quotes>>>
Claudia Dey on how writing is like taxidermy. (I LOVE this one. Taxidermy totally captures the weirdness, darkness, beauty and deception of writing.)
“I think taxidermy is the perfect simile for the writing process in that you comb the wilds of your world, you find a beast, you enter into a darkened room with this beast, you scissor up the middle, you take out everything that could rot it, and then you create a mannequin And you sew the skin back onto the mannequin. And the more time that you spend artfully enlivening this beast–so making eyes out of glass, and eyelids out of clay, and a nose out of plastic, and lips out of plastic–the more the beast comes to approximate life.”
Richard Scrimger on getting used to being vulnerable and naked as a writer…
“You reveal yourself in the lies you tell. Nothing gives you away more cleanly, more obviously, than choosing that lie rather than this lie to tell about yourself. Your own secret desires and fears come through very strongly in the lies you tell.”
Junot Díaz, on creating something new…
“The real point is that, if you are not lost, then you are at a place someone has already found. I mean, if you feel familiar or comfortable, you’re in mapped territory. What’s the use of being in mapped territory? … If you feel like you know where you’re at, someone’s already done it.”
Ray Robertson on wise books.
“Our books are always so much smarter than we are. This is why you don’t usually want to meet your favorite writers.”
Rachel Kushner on curating your life to make you a better writer…
“It really comes down to what’s going to help your cause, and everything should help your cause. And it isn’t just reading but the movies that you see, the conversations that you choose to have with people, and the places that you go and don’t go. I find that you really have to curate your life.”