Cliff Notes On The Craft: Volume 2

I want to start this post off by apologizing for not getting this post up on Wednesday. 

It's been a busy week.

This week I think I've got some good cliff notes for you, and will have an even better post next week.

Remember a lot of the writing advice I find comes from spending hours searching through Brain Pickings and Advice To Writers. Those are two great websites that are worth your time.

Now, before you read what I have for you this week, lets find you some music.

Gimme a second . . . 

Here ya go . . . 

Check out Alabama Shakes. They're a great up and coming band. Put them in your Spotify, buy them on iTunnes, or get to a store and purchase their CD. Whatever you do, listen to this band.

And without further ado. Here are your cliff notes on the craft:

Cliff notes on imagination from Ernest Hemingway:

"Imagination? It is the one thing beside honesty that a good writer must have. The more he learns from experience the more he can imagine."

Cliff notes on rewriting from Mark Twain:

"You need not expect to get your book right the first time. Go to work  and revamp or rewrite it. God only exhibits his thunder and lightning at intervals, and so they always command attention. These are God's adjectives. You thunder and lightning too much; the reader ceases to get under the bed, by and by."

Cliff notes on editing from F. Scott Fitzgerald:

"Cut out all those exclamation marks. An exclamation mark is like laughing at your own joke."

Cliff notes on becoming a good writer from Christopher Moore:

"Well, not being very good can usually be fixed, but having nothing interesting to write about can't. If you can't think of anything to write about, it's best, probably, to learn another skill or aspire to a different career. (I'm talking about fiction here. If you want to write non-fiction, you can always work as a journalist. Then they tell you what to write.) So my advice would be, and is, if you're not very good, but you'd like to be, then take five years, learn your craft, do some writing, and if you're still not good, go do something else. You'll live a lot happier life that way. Writing is too hard to do if you aren't enjoying it and getting better."

Cliff notes from me:

(I put myself last not because I think I'm more important, or because I think my advice is better, but because I think what these writers have to say is much more important than me. They have the success that gives weight to their advice.)

"Everyone is a natural storyteller, but not everyone is a writer. A writer is someone who has spent years perfecting his craft. A storyteller just tells stories."