A Quote by Francis Spufford

It's always struck me as unfair that writing has so little sensation when it's going well. — © Francis Spufford
It's always struck me as unfair that writing has so little sensation when it's going well.
The sensation of writing a book is the sensation of spinning, blinded by love and daring. It is the sensation of rearing and peering from the bent tip of a grass blade, looking for a route.
When you're writing a movie or a play and writing isn't going well, which is for me the normal condition - it's an exceptional day when suddenly I've got something and it's going well - you can call the studio or the producer or whoever is waiting for it and say, "I know I said I was going to have it in by the end of the summer.
The sensation of writing a book is the sensation of spinning, blinded by love and daring. It is the sensation of a stunt pilot's turning barrel rolls, or an inchworm's blind rearing from a stem in search of a route. At its worst, it feels like alligator wrestling, at the level of the sentence.
It never struck me as interesting that I didn't go to school - we had our own little world. I always thought of kids who were going to regular school as if they're the others, the separate ones.
The sensation of writing a book is the sensation of spinning, blinded by love and daring.
Questioning my spiritual life has always been germane to what I was writing. Always. It's because I'm not quite an atheist and it worries me. There's that little bit that holds on: 'Well, I'm almost an atheist. Give me a couple of months.'
The young mouse's eyes snapped open, clear and bright. He swung the ancient sword high and struck at the giant adder. He struck for Redwall! He struck against evil! He struck for Martin! He struck for Log-a-Log and his shrews! He struck for dead Guosim! He struck as Methuselah would have wanted him to! He struck against Cluny the Scourge and tyranny! He struck out against Captain Snow's ridicule! He struck for the world of light and freedom! He struck until his paws ached and the sword fell from them!
Because of my song 'Sam Stone,' a lot of people thought I was interested in writing protest songs. Writing protest songs always struck me as patting yourself on the back.
If people like to read their books, it is all very well, but to be at so much trouble in filling great volumes, which, as I used to think, nobody would willingly ever look into, to be labouring only for the torment of little boys and girls, always struck me as a hard fate.
I think people feel very comfortable reviewing the idea of me, as opposed to what I've actually written. Most of the time, when people write about one of my books, they're really just writing about what they think I may or may not represent, as sort of this abstract entity. Is that unfair? Not really. If I put myself in this position where I'm going to kind of weave elements of memoir into almost everything, well, I suppose that's going to happen.
Writing tends to cheer me; it always soothes my spirit and blesses me with the gift of an innocent, tender, childlike day. It is the sensation of having spent a few hours in my homeland, with my customs, free whims, my total freedom.
I carry around a little journal with me, a little notebook and a pen and just write all the time. Not necessarily actually sitting down and writing lyrics, just free-form writing, whatever's going on in my mind.
We all have unfair situations and things we don't like. You can get bitter, discouraged and sour, or you can see it as fertilizer and say, “ This difficulty is not going to defeat me; it's going to promote me. It's not going to hinder me; it's going to help me.” Don't just go through it, grow through it.
Well I loved Little League; so all the memories are pretty fond but I broke my thumb. That wasn't a lot of fun. I think probably the first time I pitched [I started out as a first baseman] and the first game I pitched in Little League, I struck out 10 batters. I had a curve ball a little early [laughs]. You're not really supposed to have one when you're 12, but I did, so I first game I struck out 10 batters. That's possibly my fondest memory.
My little niece used to call me and say 'I like watching that Uncle Darren, can I have a T-shirt of AJ Lee' and I went 'they don't make any' and it just struck me. We have Rey Mysterio for little boys. But we don't have anything for little girls.
In the course of my movies, the financing and the releasing were always the tough part. Because I loved the creative, I loved the writing, I loved the making of it. Because I guess, I never had the giant blockbuster, I never got that sort of ease for the next one. So the next one was always, "how am I going to do this?" And that thing was sort of always the thing that made me a little chickenshit to go into the next one. The writing of it was great and the making of it was great, but how am I going to release this thing and am I going to find a studio?
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