August 13, 2010
“It seems all the more imperative, nowadays, to fashion books that are compelling, because there is so much more distraction they have to resist. To me, now, to do something new is not to develop a form for the novel that has never been seen on earth before. It means to try to come to terms as a person and a citizen with what’s happening in the world now and do it in some comprehensible, coherent way.
We are so distracted by and engulfed by the technologies we’ve created, and by the constant barrage of so-called information that comes our …
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Source: “Jonathan Franzen: The Wide Shot” by Lev Grossman, TIME
Labels: Freedom | Writing
July 27, 2010
“I’ve never defined myself as a writer, or, God forbid, an author. I’m a person—someone who goes to work every morning, like the plumber or the television repairman, and who goes home at the end of the day to think about other things. I can’t imagine not going to work as long as I can. …
I try to refocus my frazzled writers on the process of writing, not the product. If the process is sound, the product will take care of itself. Recently I got a letter from a young woman writer who was back home in California after her annual visit. She said, ‘Your office is a sanctuary of craft amidst the hullabaloo of publishers, editors, and agents. You have no idea how liberating that is.’
It may seem perverse that I compare my writing to plumbing, an occupation not regarded as high-end. But to me all work is equally honorable, all crafts an astonishment when they are performed with skill and self-respect. Just as I go to work every day with my tools, which are words, the plumber arrives with his kit of wrenches and washers, and afterward the pipes have been so adroitly fitted together that they don’t leak. I don’t want any of my sentences to leak. The fact that someone can make water come out of a faucet on the 10th floor strikes me as a feat no less remarkable than the construction of a clear declarative sentence.”
Source: Life and Work by William Zinsser, Writer, Editor, Teacher
Via: The Casual Optimist
Labels: Work | Writing
May 23, 2010
“The fact that most other places, designers, and design coverage is packed into a ‘Design Week’ special, relegated to a ‘Style’ or ‘Home’ section of a newspaper or magazine, or wrapped into themed, glossy, once-a-year issue is the most concerning issue for the design industry. GOOD has always seemed very far away from succumbing to this, infusing design into every aspect of a general-interest publication without ever having to declare it. It is probably the only publication I know that covers design with any kind of rigor but has never, ever had one of those design slideshows. You know what …
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Source: Why I Write About Design Now
Labels: Writing
April 18, 2010
When asked about the role of a columnist who writes a few times a week when there are bloggers who put up something new every hour:
“Well, my role always has been to write an interesting column. There are a lot of people who are more knowledgeable than I on a given subject. You know, certainly if you want some breaking information on a constitutional issue, you might go to a lawyer blog and get some good meaty information. But that’s not at all the way I see myself.
First of all, I come out of the newsroom. I’m an …
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Source: Pulitzer-Winning Columnist Can’t Be Pigeon-Holed
Labels: Writing
February 24, 2010
Fiction, he says, gives us the time to contemplate where we are headed.
“The world is so insanely complex and fast and distracting, and one of the things I think a good book can do is slow the reader’s attention down a little bit and give them a chance to think through some of the consequences of these changes which otherwise are so quick that all you can do is react,” Haslett says.
So is literature the answer?
“It’s an ameliorative,” Haslett says with a laugh. “I don’t think it’s an answer, I don’t think it will solve our problems but I think how we pay attention to the world matters and if you can spend time inside an imaginative world then there’s a calmness and an ability to think.”
Source: ‘Union Atlantic’ Author Banked On A Coming Crisis
Labels: Writing
July 31, 2009
Zadie Smith, Author: “If a character is speaking, I just say the words to myself very quickly and almost always write them down with no corrections, which is completely the opposite of what I do when I’m narrating in third-person—I write and write and write. Actually, I’d like to get some of the looseness I have in the dialogue into the narrative. I’m very formal in the narrative… because I’m English, I think, and we have very formal ways of writing. But I like that looseness.
Dialogue shouldn’t be writerly. I try to keep the natural rhythm of people’s speech and not give it a literary texture, but it’s not always easy. You’re trying to force the plot forward, so you are going to give it a literary texture just to make the thing work. But I prefer natural dialogue if I can get it.”
Source: “Perhaps Soon Zadie Smith Will Know What She's Doing”
Labels: Writing
May 31, 2009
Ellen Lupton, Designer, Writer and Curator: “I would like to write a novel. I would like to write fiction about design. I am very interested in writing and exploring the medium of writing in relation to design. I think that would be my fantasy project. I love Maira Kalman. I love her book that just came out, “The Principles of Uncertainty”. It’s her beautiful paintings combined with her written memoirs and thoughts about the world. She’s an amazing artist. She’s a real hero to me. And I would love to do a book. I wouldn’t do something poetic like that, but I would do something more funny and about life. That would be a dream project.
At this point in my career, I could do such a book if I wanted, because I could always publish it myself. The challenge is doing these things and having them reach an audience. It’s very important to me not to do projects that are self indulgent, and I think often design authorship is very self indulgent. It’s whatever is somebody’s pet obsession, and for me it’s very important to connect to an audience.”
Source: Interview with Ellen Lupton by Portfolio Center
Labels: Writing
