A Quote by Margaret Atwood
Publishing a book is like stuffing a note into a bottle and hurling it into the sea. Some bottles drown, some come safe to land, where the notes are read and then possibly cherished, or else misinterpreted, or else understood all too well by those who hate the message. You never know who your readers might be.
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Publishing a book is like stuffing a note into a bottle and hurling it into the sea.
You never can tell, though, with suicide notes, can you? In the planetary aggregate of all life, there are many more suicide notes than there are suicides. They're like poems in that respect, suicide notes: nearly everyone tries their hand at them some time, with or without the talent. We all write them in our heads. Usually the note is the thing. You complete it, and then resume your time travel. It is the note and not the life that is cancelled out. Or the other way round. Or death. You never can tell, though, can you, with suicide notes.
To read a book, to think it over, and to write out notes is a useful exercise; a book which will not repay some hard thought is not worth publishing.
I don't know how Frank presented the old Mothers, since I never read the book. There might be some opinions on what he said, but I - or anyone else - could not make any corrections to anything Frank did.
My theory about writing is that one should write books you'd like to read, but no one else has written yet. So, as long as I stick with that, I'm entertaining myself, and then hopefully my readers as well. I hope to god I realize that I'm repeating myself, if I ever do. But if I don't, I'm sure my readers will let me know.
Bottles of wine aren't like paintings. At some point you have to consume them. The object in life is to die with no bottles of wine in your cellar. To drink your last bottle of wine and go to sleep that night and not wake up.
I think that some books are more successful than others to certain readers. People who read my books for the humor, they're going to love one book. People who read my books for the mystery, they might not like that book quite as much.
If I've made something really serene... well, if everything is like that, it's like having too much icing on your cake. You need something else under it, some kind of grounding. It's like if you're making a film, you can't have only happy moments, or else they become meaningless.
With non-fiction writing I feel like I'm confined and driven by what actually happened. That makes the "plot". So it's a process of getting all of my notes typed up, then scanning through the notes, trying to extract or find certain vignettes that seem like they might write well - that might have a potential for good energy, shape, etc. And then at some point I start stringing these together, keeping an eye on the word count.
You know, some of the portfolios we might consider buying are portfolios which would do especially well if we have an economy-wide, or I mean, a global climate change that impacts us very negatively there are some companies that will do well, and so it might make sense to hold some of those in your portfolio.
I think the worst part is that when you know you dream another person's dream, you can never truly feel at peace. Never truly trust yourself. If you carry around somebody else's nightmare, who knows what else your insides might hide or when it might come out?
Write a book you'd like to read. If you wouldn't read it, why would anybody else? Don't write for a perceived audience or market. It may well have vanished by the time your book's ready.
I would warn Orlando that you're right in the way of some serious hurricanes, and I don't think I'd be waving those flags [gay pride flags] in God's face if I were you, This is not a message of hate , this is a message of redemption. But a condition like this will bring about the destruction of your nation. It'll bring about terrorist bombs; it'll bring earthquakes, tornadoes, and possibly a meteor.
The Internet obviously changes things; we've seen that in the music industry above all else. As an author, I'm now having to deal with the fact that it's happening in the publishing industry as well. And publishing is going through a very difficult time. Some view it as positive, some negative, but nobody really knows how to deal with it. If you're an author it looks very challenging because your work can be pirated so easily and there's very little you can do about it.
I know some artists who come out of country music and the three sessions a day work ethic where you walk in, and you're told you play this note, this note, and this note, and you don't vary it. I know that works great for some people. It wouldn't work for me.
Living alone,' November whispered, 'is a skill, like running long distance or programming old computers. You have to know parameters, protocols. You have to learn them so well that they become like a language: to have music always so that the silence doesn't overwhelm you, to perform your work exquisitely well so that your time is filled. You have to allow yourself to open up until you are the exact size of the place you live, no more or else you get restless. No less, or else you drown. There are rules; there are ways of being and not being.
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