In Today’s Journal
* Quote of the Day
* Dean Wesley Smith
* July 31st Already
* Hemingway Again
* Of Interest
Quote of the Day
“Nobody really knows or understands and nobody has ever said the secret. The secret is that it is poetry written into prose and it is the hardest of all things to do….” Ernest Hemingway, from Mary Hemingway, How It Was, p.352
Dean Wesley Smith
was kind enough to leave a comment on yesterday’s post.
If you haven’t read the post yet, you can scroll up from the comments to read it or find it here on Substack.
July 31st Already
It never ceases to amaze me how fast days, weeks, and months flash past. If you’re younger than 70, please try to remember to cherish every moment. Cherish even the ‘bad’ ones because they usually lead to something better.
Once you pass 70, you’ll slow down enough that you won’t need to remember. You’ll cherish every moment more or less automatically.
That goes to writing too. Although I’m no longer keeping a daily tally of my writing, I still strongly recommend you set a daily writing goal, strive to meet it, and keep track.
Especially if you aren’t yet fully comfortable with your process, or if that process isn’t yet quite where you’d like it to be.
Hemingway Again
I strongly recommend Ernest Hemingway On Writing edited by Larry W. Phillips. You can find it on Amazon or at other stores or on eBay.
Awhile back a writer friend and I were talking about the famous man, and I mentioned I’d read somewhere that when Hemingway was writing a novel, he reread everything he wrote from page 1 each morning before he started the day’s writing.
My friend disagreed. He said Hemingway only reread what he’d written the day before, then started writing again.
I was unable to find the quote. As it turns out, we were both right. The quote is included, sort of, in the book I mentioned above.
First, an explanatory note from Larry W. Phillips:
“Hemingway, writing as ‘Your Correspondent,’ abbreviated the words to ‘Y.C.’ ‘Mice’ is the nickname by which Y.C. addresses a young writer.”
Now here’s the quote:
“Mice: How much do you read over every day before you start to write?
Y.C.: The best way is to read it all every day from the start, correcting as you go along, then go on from where you stopped the day before. When it gets so long that you can’t do this every day read back two or three chapters each day; then each week read it all from the start. That’s how you make it all of one piece. And remember to stop while you are still going good. That keeps it moving instead of having it die whenever you go on and write yourself out. When you do that you find that the next day you are pooped and can’t go on.” By-Line, Ernest Hemingway, p. 217 (as reported in Ernest Hemingway On Writing)
Cycling, anyone?
As you know, writing into the dark and cycling go hand in hand as both are accomplished by the creative subconscious and without the conscious, critical mind.
Here’s another quote that explains why I believe Hemingway also wrote into the dark when he was writing fiction:
“Mice: Do you know what is going to happen when you write a story?
Y.C. Almost never. I start to make it up and have happen what would have to happen as it goes along.”
And then he talks in several other places (including sometimes in his fiction) about writing from the subconscious and letting the subconscious ‘figure out’ the story and even about ‘not thinking’ while he was writing.
Detractors might point out that Hemingway said he “makes it up” and that proves he consciously thought his way through stories and novels.
My response? Yes, in several quotes Hemingway does says he “makes it up.” (DWS says the same thing, usually flippantly.)
These days, when talking with serious writers, I say “I just follow the characters around and write down what happens and how they react.”
And that’s also what I mean when a potential reader asks what I do for a living. I grin and say “I sit alone in a room and make stuff up.”
To me these are two ways of saying the same thing.
Hope you (and we all) have a great August.
Of Interest
Last Day for Early Bird Discount This is a great value. I hope you can take advantage of it. I hope to see some of you there.
15 Worldbuilding Tips to Make Your Story Feel Real