A Quote by Michael Korda
The advice I would offer to any writer is that even when you think you have revised your book to the point where you cannot look at it again, it is time to sit down and revise it some more.
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I cannot find any patience for those people who believe that you start writing when you sit down at your desk and pick up your pen and finish writing when you put down your pen again; a writer is always writing, seeing everything through a thin mist of words, fitting swift little descriptions to everything he sees, always noticing. Just as I believe that a painter cannot sit down to his morning coffee without noticing what color it is, so a writer cannot see an odd little gesture without putting a verbal description to it, and ought never to let a moment go by undescribed.
Read Becoming a Writer by Dorothea Brande. Then do what it says, including the tasks you think are impossible. You will particularly hate the advice to write first thing in the morning, but if you can manage it, it might well be the best thing you ever do for yourself. This book is about becoming a writer from the inside out. Many later advice manuals derive from it. You don't really need any others, though if you want to boost your confidence, "how to" books seldom do any harm. You can kick-start a whole book with some little writing exercise.
It's difficult for me to imagine any scene differently because I've read the book so many times. The book, as a whole, seems like a document that wouldn't withstand any changes at this point. Or perhaps I simply can't imagine having to revise it again.
Any advice I could give to female directors would be the same as for males: There will be endless difficulties, some seemingly defeating, on your way. That's a given. Just wipe out the very notion of stress. Concentrate on your actors. Obsess about your story and the world it is anchored in. Deal with the hundreds of down-to-earth issues [around] the existence of your film. At some point, everything will be ripe. And you wouldn't be able to stop your film from coming to life even if you wanted to.
I think the biggest advice I would give to any actor who's directing and also acting at the same time is don't even watch your coverage. You do a scene, and then, you know what you did; it doesn't matter what you look like.
If you want to be a writer, I have two pieces of advice. One is to be a reader. I think that's one of the most important parts of learning to write. The other piece of advice is 'Just do it!' Don't think about it, don't agonize, sit down and write.
Some people become artists for whatever reasons. Some of it's frivolous. And I don't think there should be any shame on that, but I think there comes a point in life where you want to offer more.
I revise and revise and revise. I'm not even sure "revise" is the right word. I work a story almost to death before it's done.
The best advice I got as a writer was also the first advice, which came from the late fantasy author and editor Karl Edward Wagner: Any agent who charges to look at your work is a crook.
Look,
Here are we
On this starry night staring into space.
And I must say
I feel as small as dust
Lying down here.
What point could there be troubling?
Head down wondering what will
Become of me,
Why concern we cannot see
But no reason to abandon it.
Time is short but that's all right,
Maybe I'll go in the middle of the night.
Take your hands from your eyes, my love,
Everything must end some time,
Don't burn the day away.
Writer's block is real. It happens. Some days you sit down at the old typewriter, put your fingers on the keys, and nothing pops into your head. Blanko. Nada. El nothingissimo. What you do when this happens is what separates you from the one-of-thesedays- I'm-gonna-write-a-book crowd.
To be a writer is to sit down at one's desk in the chill portion of every day, and to write; not waiting for the little jet of the blue flame of genius to start from the breastbone - just plain going at it, in pain and delight. To be a writer is to throw away a great deal, not to be satisfied, to type again, and then again, and once more, and over and over...
I don't think it is possible to give tips for finding one's voice; it's one of those things for which there aren't really any tricks or shortcuts, or even any advice that necessarily translates from writer to writer. All I can tell you is to write as much as possible.
[My advice to a beginning photographer is] sit down with a pencil and paper and think about what your life is about. What you are about. Don't even take a camera into your hands before you figure that out.
There is a time to provide advice and offer an opinion, and there is a time not to. Don't be too quick to offer unsolicited advice. It certainly will not endear you to people.
This is terrible, when a writer is bored by his own work, but it was a real bomb and had reached the point where I couldn't even stand to look at it any more.
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