A Quote by Nick Laird
The whole point of writing poetry or fiction is that you get to agonize over whatever it is you want to say, and you finally say it, and you get it as perfect as you can make it. Then you're forced to babble freestyle.
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Writing blog posts is totally freeing in a whole new way for me. I'm not writing it for any editor, and I'm not being paid, so I can say whatever I want. I don't have to justify the cost of a book to readers; they get it for free, so expectations are naturally low. (And no one-star reviews!)
Writing fiction is not a profession that leaves one well-disposed toward reading fiction. One starts out loving books and stories, and then one becomes jaded and increasingly hard to please. I read less and less fiction these days, finding the buzz and the joy I used to get from fiction in ever stranger works of non-fiction, or poetry.
The Sophists had this idea: Forget this idea of what's true or not—what you want to do is rhetoric; you want to be able to persuade the audience and have the audience think you're smart and cool. And Socrates and Plato, basically their whole idea is, "Bullshit. There is such a thing as truth, and it's not all just how to say what you say so that you get a good job or get laid, or whatever it is people think they want.
I don't know what I'm painted as. I can be happy as hell and then someone says something and I feel different. People are going to say whatever they want to say to... get people to read their story. I just ask people to write the whole, complete story.
I can't get mad about peoples' opinions, I always say that. That's their opinion. They got every right to say or think whatever they want to say and think. And whatever they say and think don't affect my life.
Others would say to me, 'It is only temporary, it will pass, you will get over it,' but of course they had no idea how I felt, although they were certain that they did. Over and over and over I would say to myself, If I can't feel, if I can't move, if I can't think, and I can't care, then what conceivable point is there in living?
I often give this metaphor where I say that writing short fiction is like surfing, while writing a novel is like navigating with your car. So when you navigate with your car, you want to get somewhere. When you surf, you don't want to get somewhere, you just don't want to fall off your board.
Even though I always claimed that I didn't want to write about something - once I wasn't writing fiction, anyway; I think for me the change from fiction to poetry was that in fiction I was writing about something, in poetry I was writing something.
It used to be with chocolate. I would put chocolate in my studio and say, "You know, Nat, there's this chocolate you can have if you get over there." And usually if I got over there, I would start writing. Sometimes I need get out of the house and go to a café and write. Sometimes I'll write with other friends to get myself going. And sometimes I just say "Ok, Nat, enough. Go one hour. Keep your hand going." I'll do whatever it takes.
Why don't you be together with me? If you can't say it out now, then you just answer by selecting...
1st, if you say YES, we will get married right away
2nd, if you say NO, I will use every possible way to make you say YES and get married right away
3rd, if you say you need time to consider, I will give you one day to think over it and then get married
So you just choose, is it YES or NO? No, it's either 1st, 2nd or 3rd. Marry or not marry?
As you go on you realize "Okay I know how to get laughs but am I saying things I want to say? Am I writing jokes that I like?" You get to a point that is that so you move on.
I must say that, on the whole, I prefer fiction to poetry.
Music is an opportunity to say every single thing that you want to say. People will pore over whatever you say and however you say it and, for me, it represents complete freedom of speech.
I will reveal to the American people over and over and over again the Clinton way, say what you have to say to get elected, lie as long as you can get away with it.
A lot of people say two-a-days is the time to get them tough. It's over by then. You better not be getting tough in August. Our whole philosophy in August is to get ready for the first game. June and July are to get ready for August. Our whole goal in the middle of February is to develop toughness.
You write these songs which are really dear to you about your family or friends, loved ones, and then you get this call, and they say, 'It's perfect for two vampires making out in the back of a car.' It's some random TV show, and so I say, 'Oh, yeah, perfect - that's what I meant it for.'
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