A Quote by Raymond Carver
Write about what you know, and what do you know better than your own secrets?
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I was interested in the ways we can write biography. When you're first starting to write about your own life it feels so shapeless because you don't know how to make your own story cohesive. How do I pluck a story out of the entirety of what it means to be alive. It occurred to me recently that when you're telling a story about your own life, rather than taking a chunk, you're kinda like lifting a thread from a loom.
And i know better, not to be friends with boys with girlfriends, oh I know better than that, i know better. you'll play the victim, and i'll be the bad guy, but i know better than that, no i know better.
What everybody is well advised to do is to not write about your own life, this is if you want to write fast. You will be writing about your own life anyway but you won't know it.
There's nobody who knows the left better than I know 'em. I know the left like I know every square inch of my gloriously naked body, not just the back of my hand. I know them. I know them better than they know themselves because they refuse to be honest about who they are really are and what they really believe, but I am.
Write like you write, like you can't help but write, and your voice will become yours and yours alone. It'll take time but it'll happen as long as you let it. Own your voice, for your voice is your own. Once you know where your voice lives, you no longer have to worry so much about being derivative.
Ever hear the expression "write what you know?" My version says "write what you want to know." If you want to know about the history of Spain, write about the history of Spain - fiction or nonfiction. If your fascinated by the old west, maybe your character lives there.
Why do grown-ups think it's easier for children to bear secrets than the truth? Don't they know about the horror stories we imagine to explain the secrets?
Success is more about doing the things you know you should do than discovering the secrets you don't yet know.
From an acting perspective, I would say that you should always try to make your own stuff. Always be ambitious about your own projects and always know better than anyone else what you're good at.
Democracy can tie your hands in a rock 'n' roll band, you know? It can be a great thing, but if you've got a certain amount of vision and you write a lot of songs, it's sometimes better to have your own band and make your own decisions.
Not write what you know, but know what you write. If you write about a world before, after, or other than this one, enter that world completely. Search it to find your deepest longings and most terrible fears. Let imagination carry you as far as it may, as long as you recount the voyage with excitement and wonder. But this is the most important rule: write the book you most long to read.
I don't sleep. All night long I'm wide awake, thinking, Secrets, secrets, secrets. There are secrets in my past no one needs to know. Secrets in my present that might kill Kim and Chip. I don't want to take my secrets with me when I go. When I pass through the light, i want to be free of everything and everyone.
I hope Let Me In doesn't encourage it! I mean, vampires might be real! Honestly, I don't know. It's like saying aliens are real. I don't know. We are so tiny in the spectrum of the universe, we're a speck of dust compared to some galaxies, and so who knows what's out there? We barely even know our own - we know more about space than we know about our own sea.
You have to surrender to your mediocrity, and just write. Because it's hard, really hard, to write even a crappy book. But it's better to write a book that kind of sucks rather than no book at all, as you wait around to magically become Faulkner. No one is going to write your book for you and you can't write anybody's book but your own.
Since we cannot be universal and know all that is to be known of everything, we ought to know a little about everything. For it is far better to know something about everything than to know all about one thing. This universality is the best. If we can have both, still better; but if we must choose, we ought to choose the former.
The best thing to do when you're writing is to write about something you know instead of pretending. I mean, you can do that too, obviously, but when you write from your heart, it works so much better.
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