A Quote by Stanley A. McChrystal

I can't sculpt. But if I were a sculptor, as you start to get something that actually looks like what you want, then it starts to be fun. That's the way I find writing. — © Stanley A. McChrystal
I can't sculpt. But if I were a sculptor, as you start to get something that actually looks like what you want, then it starts to be fun. That's the way I find writing.
When you're shopping, too, you feel like you're designing as you're shopping. You're like, 'I love this, but I wish it was shorter or I wish it was purple. I wish it was a different fabric,' you know. It starts there, but then when you have to start from scratch, it really comes with an idea first, and then... you want to tweak and then you come up with something else and you want to add to it or change. It's fun. It's like an ocean - you can do whatever.
When you start a memoir, you think, 'I'm going to blast all the people who were mean to me.' And then you start writing, and you go, actually, it's so much more fun to say nice things about people who were kind and generous to you.
I know if I persist it will pay back in dividends and it always does. What starts to happen is like exercise, the pain goes away. It starts to get easier and the weight starts to get lighter and people start to notice a difference in you and you start to notice a difference in yourself. You find your ability to make decisions is easier; you find you are inspired more often. You find your success increases. You find that your random moments when you're in the flow are no longer random and you can control them. Other people notice the difference.
I try to find where the fun is and go there and then get asked if I want to have more fun. That's the way I want my life to go. Follow the fun.
Writing has always been so much fun for me, and it still is. I think if you can keep it fun, then you have something. You start to lose it if it becomes work. That's one of the reasons that we're in this business - to get out of work.
I like to think of myself as kind of a sculptor, only I sculpt people.
I like to take on the thing I don't like at the moment. I like to find something that looks wrong or feels off, something that I would never have done in the past, like brocade. And then all of a sudden, if we can make brocade work, then we've really done something, because I hate it. And that's just a reference. I don't actually hate brocade.
The act of writing is either something the writer dreads or actually likes, and I actually like it. Even re-writing's fun. You're getting somewhere, whether it seems to move or not.
I want to see what the Green Party looks like. I think if people don't start voting what they feel, if that's something other than the Democratic Party or the Republican Party, then nothing's going to change. You need more political parties that actually have a chance.
When I work there are two distinct phases: the phase of pushing the work along, getting something to happen, where all the input comes from me, and phase two, where things start to combine in a way that wasn't expected or predicted by what I supplied. Once phase two begins everything is okay, because then the work starts to dictate its own terms. It starts to get an identity which demands certain future moves. But during the first phase you often find that you come to a full stop.
Stand at the base and look up at 3,000 feet of blankness. It just looks like there's no way you can climb it. That's what you seek as a climber. You want to find something that looks absurd and figure out how to do it.
I am an insomniac. I wake up at 6 or 6:30 and get out of bed immediately. The coffee starts right away. Then I get to the computer as quickly as possible. I like to start writing when I'm still half-asleep, in a state between dreaming and waking.
To me, writing is the most fun. It's not always fun, but finally when you make it come out the way you want, it's then you can say, 'It's fun, boy.'
Before I started working on a computer, writing a piece would be like making something up every day, taking the material and never quite knowing where you were going to go next with the material. With a computer it was less like painting and more like sculpture, where you start with a block of something and then start shaping it.
[Writing something original from scratch], the initial process is way different. But once it exists and you start to actually work on making it real, then the approach is kind of the same, for me anyways.
There's a point I can get to where I start writing character and then through the dialogue, after all of this preparation, the thing starts to feel like it's a character developing through the dialogue. A lot of character traits do come from writing dialogue, but I have to be ready to do it.
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