 | Category: | Books | | Genre: | Biographies & Memoirs | | Author: | Bret Lott |
“I’d like to start this book by saying that in the beginning was the Word, and in the original Greek that the Gospel of John was written in, the word 'Word' was logos, which translated, also means 'reason.'”
Writer Bret Lott (author of "A Song I Knew by Heart" and "Jewel") begins with an attitude integral to a writer’s life, and it is summed up in two words: Words Matter. Hence, each word used should be chosen carefully, be it a, the, or this. The difference between these words, can be worlds apart, and Bret Lott demonstrates through excerpts of his own work and of other writers he admires.
It’s a practical memoir devoid of pretensions. “If there’s one truth that comes out of your writing education, one single nugget of plain truth you can walk away with, it will be this: you’re on your own… Learning to write—how to—is a desperately idiosynchratic, eccentric, single-souled life-long quest, a journey you have to make alone. Anyone who pretends otherwise, is a crock.”
Even in seeking the answer as to why I write is a quest I alone can embark and hopefully fulfill. No one else can make sense of it for me. For fiction writer Bret Lott, he writes, because he cares. He cares about the characters in his mind, to follow them to their true endings, despite his own limitations and misgivings about himself.
Now, why do I write? Few may understand me when I say that I write because that is my joy. It is when I write on a piece of paper (or on a new blank document) that I feel closest to heaven. It is when I write that my existence makes sense.
Finally, I leave one piece of advice from Bret Lott about characterization in fiction writing (giving jobs to your characters):
“Steal mercilessly from your own life, you own jobs, from what you know. But we only have so much we can steal from ourselves before we have to start looking around, seeking out other jobs for our characters. This leads to my second point: steal from someone else. Perhaps the best way…is that theft is done stealthily, the more stealthily the better, and the best case being that you don’t even know you’ve been stealing that job.”
One way to do it is to look up your monitor and observe what others are doing. Then, look at them with childlike wonder.
 |  Now, why do I write? Few may understand me when I say that I write because that is my joy. It is when I write on a piece of paper (or on a new blank document) that I feel closest to heaven. It is when I write that my existence makes sense.  I soo agree, but not to the extent that I can feel your joy. I can only empathize and make our feelings relative. Anyway [somehow I got lost in my point Ö], yeah, people write for different reasons. For some it'll be for the joy of reading something they've created, for the others, it would be writing per se. Some get amused when other people would read or appreciate their works, for most of the people who writes for the sake [and love] of writing, I doubt that that would matter.
I remember my sister. She would often, if not all the time, resist the urge to pull the computer plug whenever I'm updating my blog. She'd always, always tell me that if I just wanted to write, then on line blogging would not be necessary. My simple rebuttal? "If the greatest writers from time immemorial had that mind set, there would be nothing worth reading."
Cheers to lovely writers like you. |
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