Writerly Wisdom III

WordPress has that playful Pavlovian side in that every time we post a blog we are rewarded with a quote.  I liken it to the prize earned in my Crackjacks box.  The way notable and the everyman combines words to create a noteworthy thought is one of my happies in life and keeps me posting.

Even prior to joining the ranks of WordPress bloggers, I have delighted in gathering words. I save them and savor them. Like with many things in life, I have learned that the best way to enjoy something even more fully is to share it.  And so here–I am sharing my latest gathering of  various quotes, with the emphasis on writing. I hope you also savor their impact, their resonance, their form of sustenance as I harvest them from my hiding places and shake them to send them skittering across the page.  Enjoy!

 

I love being a writer. What I can’t stand is the paperwork. Peter De Vries

The best way to become acquainted with a subject is to write a book about it.Benjamin Disraeli

There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.W. Somerset Maugham

 

English: W. Somerset Maugham British writer (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

I loved words. I love to sing them and speak them and even now, I must admit, I have fallen into the joy of writing them.Anne Rice

 

A plot is two dogs and one bone. Robert Newton Peck

Prose…words in their best order.

Poetry…the best words in the best order.

                                                Samuel Taylor Coleridge

 

 Out of the quarrel with others we make rhetoric;

Out of the quarrel with ourselves we make poetry.

                                                                W.B. Yeats

 

 

 

A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom.

                                                                Robert Frost

The only reason for being a professional writer is that you can’t help it. Leo Rosten

There is creative reading as well as creative writing.Ralph Waldo Emerson

Writing is the only profession where no one considers you ridiculous if you earn no money.Jules Renard

The scariest moment is always just before you start.Stephen King

Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers. Isaac Asimov

Isaac Asimov Hails a Cab (Photo credit: zzazazz)

 

My ideas usually come not at my desk writing but in the midst of living. Anais Nin

The task of a writer consists of being able to make something out of an idea. Thomas Mann

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. Ben Franklin

The two most engaging powers of an author are to make new things familiar and familiar things new. Samuel Johnson

No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader. Robert Frost

Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass. Anton Chekov

Go to the edge of the cliff and jump off.  Build your wings on the way down. Ray Bradbury

The beautiful part of writing is that you don’t have to get it right the first time, unlike, say, a brain surgeon. Robert Cormier

 

 Nothing’s a better cure for writer’s block than to eat ice cream right out of the carton. Don Roff

 

image from members virtualtourist.com

 

What writerly quotes of wisdom inspire you? Oh, and what ice cream is your choice to thaw out writer’s block?

Happy Pages,

CricketMuse

 

Burn and Turn: Censored and Challenged Books/BB Week #1

What have To Kill A Mockingbird, The Awakening, Huckleberry Finn, and The Hunger Games all have in common?  Easy. Besides making the bestsellers list, they have also made the banned books list. And let’s pause this opening for a bit of clarification. Banned Book Week is actually misleading, since books aren’t technically banned anymore–they are challenged, since we all have, at least in the US of A, the ability to procure what we want to read.

Banned Book Week is the annual emphasis that occurs during the last week of September, and serves as a reminder how society, during given points and times in history, get tweaked about what is available to read.  However, it is not only in the United States that books have created ire in the powers of say so.  Read Tweak happens around the world.  For instance:

Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland:  Used to be banned in the province of Hunan, China, beginning in 1931 for its portrayal of anthropomorphized animals acting on the same level of complexity as human beings. The censor General Ho Chien believed that attributing human language to animals was an insult to humans. He feared that the book would teach children to regard humans and animals on the same level, which would be “disastrous.”

Then again sometimes banning is not good enough–let’s just burn the bugger and totally purge society’s ability for intellectual discernment.  Burned books would include:

• Ulysses, by James Joyce–Burned in the U.S. (1918)
• The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck–Burned by the East St. Louis, IL Public Library (1939)
• The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway–Burned in Nazi bonfires in Germany (1933)
• Slaughterhouse Five, by Kurt Vonnegut–Burned in Drake, ND (1973)

Although there haven’t been any recent burnings, Ray Bradbury (rest in peace, Ray, you are missed) foresaw a day when all books would be burned. Not because of poisoned opinion, offended sensibilities, or societal outrage–no, Ray thought books would be burned due to lack of interest.  Intellectual thought via the printed page would be overridden by the quest of Jello entertainment(that ubiquitous substance which has form but no true nutrition and is quite similar to most television programming). In the near future Bradbury believed it would be illegal to own or read books so the government created a mockery out the fireman and had him burn books instead of saving that which would burn.  The paradox is stunningly brilliant, which is why Bradbury and his insights will be missed.

The book I refer to is, of course, Fahrenheit 451. The delicious and sad irony is that F451 was censored for its language in order for school districts to allow it on reading lists.

This week I will be posting views, trivia, and insights about banning, censoring, and challenging intellectual matter, because it does matter.

Banned Book Week.  Read a book and challenge your brain.

Ray Bradbury (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Related articles

• Banned Books (presurfer.blogspot.com)
• Banned Books Week: Celebrate your freedom to read (robbinslibrary.wordpress.com)
• Banned Book Week Needs You! Looking for Host Blogs to Celebrate With Me! (bookjourney.wordpress.com)
• Banned books week 2012 (moosenoose.com)
• Banned (wordsmithsix.wordpress.com)

Farewell to Ray Bradbury

Photo of Ray Bradbury. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Ray Bradbury. I discovered him back in college, maybe even in high school.  I devoured his books and reread Dandelion Wine, always wondering why it hasn’t transferred to film like so many of his other stories.  His stories and books are part of my teaching curriculum.  His effortless way with imagery and metaphor are sterling examples I held up to my students as exemplars.  I show his Ray Bradbury Theater episodes in Creative Writing, Freshmen English, Sophomore English, and plan to study his Farenheit 51 in AP Senior English.  I have savored the notion Bradbury has  somewhat been a co-teacher in my classroom. 

Ray Bradbury was and is a favorite author, not so much for his outstanding stories, but for his youthful outlook.  After showing some of his interview clips to students they appreciated his writing that much more.  “He’s a pretty cool guy.” High praise from a fifteen year old.

So, this is farewell, for now, Ray.  Your books and stories, dreams, and innovations and imagination will live on in your words.

Related articles

• “Zero Hour,” Ray Bradbury, 1947 (jennre.wordpress.com)
• “The Pedestrian,” Ray Bradbury, 1951 (jennre.wordpress.com)
• Ray Bradbury on how Disneyland humanized robots [Afternoon Reading] (io9.com)
• MGM Making Film Adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s FROM THE DUST RETURNED (geektyrant.com)

Writerly Wisdom

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.
Benjamin Franklin

There is creative reading as well as creative writing.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.
Ernest Hemingway
Good writing is like a windowpane.
George Orwell

You fail only if you stop writing.
Ray Bradbury
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