A Quote by Thomas Pynchon
Get too conceptual, too cute and remote, and your characters die on the page.
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To me, and I'm sure for other writers, too, characters come back and they relive again, but what about those characters who only live for a page or two? Or for five pages or 10 pages. I like to think they're still out there - still living - but for me they kind of die, too. It's kind of sad. I don't think about them anymore unless I give them life again.
I try not to get too cute for cute's sake.
I was too old, too young, too fat, too thin, too tall, too short, too blond, too dark - but at some point, they're going to need the other. So I'd get really good at being the other.
When life tends to get too complex, too fast, too cluttered, too deadline oriented, or too type A for you, stop and remember your own spirit. You're headed for inspiration, a simple, peaceful place where you're in harmony with the perfect timing of all creation.
Characters for me are born on page one and they die on page 100.
We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch tv too much. We have multiplied our possessions but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often. We've learned how to make a living but not a life. We've added years to life, not life to years.
Many die too late, and some die too early. Yet strangers soundeth the precept: "Die at the right time!"
No matter what your age or your life path, whether making art is your career or your hobby or your dream, it is not too late or too egotistical or too selfish or too silly to work on your creativity.
I like acting too much and it's too, I'm just too busy doing that and I'm too hungry for it, to get behind the camera. I mean, unless I could act in it, too. I don't think I've got the right brain. I'm too disorganized.
People who look at art don't really - don't go with the artist. They don't sort of accept what he or she has done and kind of go with it. There are always - either there's too much color or not enough color, either it's not conceptual enough or it's too conceptual. In other words, most criticism isn't what the viewer expected that it would do based on what they think you have done and that's good as far as I'm concerned.
Words too familiar, or too remote, defeat the purpose of a poet.
You size up someone physically in less than one second - too tall, too short, too fat, too thin, too old, too young, too stuffy, too scruffy.
Oh, ants, my sisters, good old honeydew-seekers! From close up you are sticky and shiny and gristly; and your nymphs have parasitic red mites stuck to them. You are too intent upon your chewing and gathering to listen to me, but I tell you that despite my warm feelings I really do not like you, and I cannot feel sorry for you in any way because there are too many of you and you are not cute at all. You eat too much of my forests; you are a rebellious tribe, and I will destroy you; I will poison your nests with sweet-smelling traps.
Be neither too remote nor too familiar.
The success of 'Rome' was in making the history accessible and giving viewers everyman characters through which they can connect to historical figures. It stops the story from being too remote.
I think a good writer is a mix of confidence (sure that what they're writing is going to appeal to their readers) and uncertainty (what if all these words are crap?). If you're too confident, you get an attitude that seeps through into your writing, affecting the characters and the story. If you're too uncertain, you'll never finish anything.
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