Cliff Notes On The Craft: Volume 1

Cliff Notes On The Craft is going to be a new feature here at the blog.

These cliff notes will be posted every Wednesday and will be aimed at writers.

In the past I've posted essays that were meant to be my advice to writers. I may occasionally post blogs like that but not as often from here on out. 

I'm 28 and have been writing for around 4 to 5 years. I've learned a lot, but don't know nearly as much as more successful writers do. 

Here in the Cliff Notes I'll be including short thoughts on writing from myself and other writers. I'll be scouring the Interwebs and finding the best advice from the best writers. 

Such websites will include: Advice To Writers, Brain Pickings, @Quotes4Writers, and a host of other websites. Most of these sites you can find under the tab Sites of Interest. Check them out.

And before we get started here is some music for your listening pleasure . . .

Cliff notes on writing everyday from Geoff Dyer:

"Do it everyday. Make a habit of putting your observations into words and gradually this will become instinct. This is the most important rule of all and, naturally, I don't follow it."

Cliff notes on language from Kurt Vonnegut:

"As for your use of language: Remember that two great masters of language, William Shakespeare and James Joyce, wrote sentences that were almost childlike when their subjects were most profound. 'To be or not to be?' asks Shakespeare's Hamlet. The longest word is three letters long. Joyce, when he was frisky, could put together a sentence as intricate and as glittering as a necklace for Cleopatra, but my favorite sentence in his short story 'Eveline' is just this one: 'She was tired.' At that point in the story, no other words could break the heart of the reader as those three words do.

Simplicity of language is not only reputable, but perhaps even sacred. The Bible opens with a sentence well within the writing skills of a lively fourteen-year-old: 'In the beginning God created the heaven and earth.'"

Cliff notes on imagination from Neil Gaiman:

"You get ideas from daydreaming. You get ideas from being bored. You get ideas all the time. The only difference between writers and other people is we notice when we're doing it."

Cliff notes on reading from Stephen King:

"The real importance of reading is that it creates an ease and intimacy with the process of writing . . . It also offers you a constantly growing knowledge of what has been done and what hasn't, what is trite and what is fresh, what works and what just lies there dying (or dead) on the page. The more you read, the less apt you are to make a fool of yourself with your pen or word processor."

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.)

"Good writing should read like good music sounds. There should be rhythms and melodies and harmonies. It should take you to other places and another time. It should make you feel deep seated emotions and experience what you've never experienced before. Good writing should move you and nourish you and cause you to grow."

What's your thoughts, writers? 

Have any writing advice you revisit or that helps you push forward when stuck?