Fiona Capp’s take on writing and writer’s festivals:
“I love writing because it’s a solitary activity and because I don’t have to be there when other people read my books. I love surfing for similar reasons. You can be sitting out in the water with a bunch of other surfers, everyone quietly waiting for a set, and you can enjoy the company of your fellow surfers without having to say a thing to them. Everybody knows why they’re there. Everybody knows why they love it. Occasionally, I do fall into conversation with other surfers. Once, a surfer told me about the death of his daughter. But most of the time, I’m happy to remain silent. To treat the whole experience as a form of meditation.” {Link} {Found thanks to Gen}
Cory Doctorow’s advice on writing. And I say yes, yes, yes on point three. In my own work I’ve wasted time doing the exact same thing. You need to do research more often than not, yes, but leave it till LAST. Find and replace those ‘TK’s’ then.
Ian McEwan has talked on a similar subject. In one of his novels he needed to describe an autopsy and went so far as to schedule attending one. However he cancelled at the last minute. Why? “Had I gone to {to it}, I would have had to become a journalist – and I don’t think I’m a good journalist. I can describe accurately the thing that I imagine far better than the thing I remember seeing.” Paris Review, 2002.It might be worth considering to the writers out there.
Here is Peter Carey’s protest against possibly abolishing Australian territorial copyright.
