Read through the most famous quotes by topic #author
It isn't the subjects we write about but the seriousness and subtlety of our expression that determines the worth of or effort. ↗
The pen to a writer is like a cigarette to a smoker; they need it to take the edge off. ↗
#books #life #on-writing #philosophy #poetry
Show me you care about our common tongue. Bring to your [writing] passion, deeply informed by knowledge of your subject. Stay me, not with apples and flagons, but with wit and grace, humor and intense caring about your discipline. Don't slack, don't give it a lick and a promise, don't make it evident that you posted what was 'good enough for government work,' don't try and fake it. Give it your best, your all, not for pence, but for the love of the craft. Do these things, as these writers and scores I have not named do, bring to your work your self, your heart, your voice, motherly or youthful, lawyerly or priestly, conservative or liberal, it matters not. Do this and I and hundreds of others will return again and again to your work, not merely because we may have a burning need for a new printer or an abiding interest in college newspapers or what have you, but because we wish to spend time with your mind and voice. ↗
Having to amuse myself during those earlier years, I read voraciously and widely. Mythic matter and folklore made up much of that reading—retellings of the old stories (Mallory, White, Briggs), anecdotal collections and historical investigations of the stories' backgrounds—and then I stumbled upon the Tolkien books which took me back to Lord Dunsany, William Morris, James Branch Cabell, E.R. Eddison, Mervyn Peake and the like. I was in heaven when Lin Carter began the Unicorn imprint for Ballantine and scoured the other publishers for similar good finds, delighting when I discovered someone like Thomas Burnett Swann, who still remains a favourite. This was before there was such a thing as a fantasy genre, when you'd be lucky to have one fantasy book published in a month, little say the hundreds per year we have now. I also found myself reading Robert E. Howard (the Cormac and Bran mac Morn books were my favourites), Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith and finally started reading science fiction after coming across Andre Norton's Huon of the Horn. That book wasn't sf, but when I went to read more by her, I discovered everything else was. So I tried a few and that led me to Clifford Simak, Roger Zelazny and any number of other fine sf writers. These days my reading tastes remain eclectic, as you might know if you've been following my monthly book review column in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. I'm as likely to read Basil Johnston as Stephen King, Jeanette Winterson as Harlan Ellison, Barbara Kingsolver as Patricia McKillip, Andrew Vachss as Parke Godwin—in short, my criteria is that the book must be good; what publisher's slot it fits into makes absolutely no difference to me. ↗
So I don’t think I’ll make Poet Laureate, but I swear I’m not twisted and bitter, If finely-wrought talents don’t weigh in the balance, I can always write haiku on Twitter. ↗
#contemporary-poets #new-releases #poetry #quotes #rosy-cole
But I'm going to try to tell the truth. Except for the parts I'm leaving out, because there's still stuff I'm just not going to tell you. Get used to it. ↗
