A Quote by Ben Fountain
I think if you spend much time dwelling on influence you can get self-conscious about every line you write. That's a great way to freeze up.
Related Quotes
I don't like the camera. I get very self-conscious with it and then spend way too much time not looking self-conscious instead of being free, as I do on stage, to do my work.
Every time one can write a self-deluded song, you are way ahead of the game, way ahead. Self-delusion is the basis of nearly all the great scenes in all the great plays, from 'Oedipus' to 'Hamlet.'
For better or worse, I seem to gravitate toward writing about something or someone else, then have my own self shove its way into that story. It seems insanely narcissistic. But I also think there's a particular effect that comes from using my autobiography in service to another story, as opposed to being the subject. I'm much more comfortable working in that mode. And I do think I have a persona or mood that I keep coming back to: self-conscious, self-critical, unsure. I write a lot about bodies, particularly male ones, usually as a point of emphasis for my insecurities about my own.
People who take books on sex to bed become frigid. You get self-conscious. You can't think a story. You can't think, "I shall do a story to improve mankind." Well, it's nonsense. All the great stories, all the really worthwhile plays, are emotional experiences. If you have to ask yourself whether or not you love a girl or you love a boy, forget it. You don't. A story is the same way. You either feel a story and need to write it, or you better not write it.
Don't waste your singleness. I think we spend a lot of time griping about how we're single, and we spend a lot of time and energy being angry about that when we could be spending that time to really serve other people and use the free time we do have to do so much more for the Kingdom of God. So don't waste that time. Use it. You only get so much time and then you'll most likely get married and have kids and a husband and not have as much free time. So enjoy it and use it to serve other people.
If you think about what you do, if you become self-conscious about it, you've got to be very careful. Because I really like to write without self-awareness of what I'm doing.
If I spent my time worrying about what other people would think of my work, I would be too self-conscious to write.
If you're a playwright, unless you're really lacking in get-up-and-go, you can always get your play up somewhere. You can't necessarily make a living doing it, but theater is about meeting an audience. Plays are not easier to write necessarily, they take less time to write. If you get them up, it's a much more rough-and-tumble kind of existence. I think it's, from my perspective, easier than novel writing.
I don't want to spend too much time dwelling on what I've already done because there is still so much to do.
I think my voice worked out fine, but it was a lot of work for me. And I was very self-conscious about it. I was a bit self-conscious about writing lyrics too.
There's no way I would have got to see so much of the world, with my humble background, without modelling. We were penniless and hungry for most of my youth. I washed the sheets in the bathtub in my bedroom and hung them out of the window on the clothes line, which in winter was difficult as the sheets would freeze and get stuck to the line.
If I get back into theater, I think I'd want to do a play. I enjoy singing, but it beats me up a bit. I get super paranoid and self-conscious about my voice.
I do everything by hand... Even if I'm doing really big letters and I spend a lot of time going over the line and over the line and trying to make it straight, I'll never be able to make it straight. From a distance it might look straight, but when you get close up, you can always see the line waver. And I think that's where the beauty is.
I spent age 6-12 basically thinking about 'Back to the Future' all the time, so I think it's probably had a pretty huge influence on me and the way I think and write.
I didn't feel self conscious 'cause my sisters and I all had thick brows, and by the time I got to the age that I could be self conscious about them, they were in style!
I try not to think too much about what the audience is thinking and what they think I should do. I'd be self-conscious if I did. Anyone becomes mannered if you think too much about what other people think.
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