A Quote by Anthony Burgess
I chart a little first-list of names, rough synopsis of chapters, and so on. But one daren't overplan; so many things are generated by the sheer act of writing.
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I am by nature not a list-keeper, but I do keep lists of names and add at least one or two every single day without exception. First names, last names, middle names, combinations of. I've collected more over the years than I can possibly ever use in a single lifetime, but I keep the list going nonetheless. I tell my students that it's a habit, an act of attention, that will keep them engaged, keep them thinking about characters and stories, and how that match might get made.
I worked with so many comedians who became big names - so many, I can't even remember some of their names. John Byner, Totie Fields, Joan Rivers. Shecky Green at the MGM. When I started my career, my first hotel in Las Vegas was at the old Flamingo. My opening act was Bill Cosby.
I read in the paper today the list of the most popular boys' names in Britain. The first was Jack, the second was Mohammed. That makes me feel a little bit worried.
A list of your own making is the most powerful list of all... The good stuff can be 'love at first sight' - in need of study, courting and claiming. And like a love note, it's nice to have things in writing.
If you can stand to wait 24 hours before you decide the fate of what you have written - either good or bad - you're more likely to see that invisible thing that is invisible for the first few days in any new writing. We just can't know what all is in a sentence until there are several sentences to follow it. Pages of writing need more pages in order to be known, chapters need more chapters.
There are so many projects on my Dream List. I have so many things in the works, just like little ideas or collections of things or things I write or even just a title of something.
The first act is writing, the second act is filming, the third act is releasing. If you have to partake in the third act, it hurts the first act of the next one. It's like a prizefight. You get punched.
There's actually a name app for baby names. It's like Tinder for baby names. You swipe left and swipe right, and it makes a little list for you.
Do one thing at a time. Start the day with a list of things you have to do, and do the most important things first. Even if you don't get the list done, you've gotten the most important things done. So many people spend so much time on things that aren't important.
I came back to this idea of telling the stories of women who aren't in all of the history books. Their names are not up there next to male names that we've know since we were little kids. Ching Shih, for example, was a pirate commander from the late 1800s to the early 1900s. She was one of the most fearsome pirates, why is her name not included when we list the names of great pirates like Blackbeard?
I made a list of people who needed just a little bit of money. And when the list was complete, there were 42 names. The total amount of money they needed was $27. I was shocked.
I printed a list of Irish names from the Internet and my husband, Dave, saw Finley on the list. I really liked it but didn't want to scare Dave off with my enthusiasm. So I used a little reverse psychology and let him think it was his idea.
Names and attributes must be accommodated to the essence of things, and not the essence to the names, since things come first and names afterwards.
I see my self-identity in the same way I see most things: a list, in greatest to least importance. I've found I can't use the multitude of hats analogy or some kind of flow chart where circles are connected by lines and entwined in Venn diagrams. I need a list. I need a top shelf.
Writing is this odd act, right? To sit and type, or write by hand, or whatever people do. And it requires a real discipline because it is really a sheer act of will that you're creating something, and you're doing it by yourself.
I began to write in the first place because I expected everything to change, and I wanted to have things in writing the way they had been. Just a little things, of course. A little of my little.
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