(Source: amandaonwriting)
(Source: shadowofasoul)
Neil Gaiman: For Novice Writers: the quick test for Are You Being Scammed Or Not...
I read a sad case today of a young writer who had had her story rewritten into illiteracy by a so-called publisher, who then abused her in email when she wrote to complain. She wsn’t getting paid for her story — instead she was actually buying copies of the anthology to show people that she had…
A cautionary tale and some good advice
(Source: howpublishingreallyworks.blogspot.com)
(Source: amandaonwriting)
(Source: amandaonwriting)
(Source: amandaonwriting)
![amandaonwriting:
Helen Dunmore - On Writing
1 Finish the day’s writing when you still want to continue.
2 Listen to what you have written. A dud rhythm in a passage of dialogue may show that you don’t yet understand the characters well enough to write in their voices.
3 Read Keats’s letters.
4 Reread, rewrite, reread, rewrite. If it still doesn’t work, throw it away. It’s a nice feeling, and you don’t want to be cluttered with the corpses of poems and stories which have everything in them except the life they need.
5 Learn poems by heart.
6 Join professional organisations which advance the collective rights of authors.
7 A problem with a piece of writing often clarifies itself if you go for a long walk.
8 If you fear that taking care of your children and household will damage your writing, think of JG Ballard.
9 Don’t worry about posterity – as Larkin (no sentimentalist) observed “What will survive of us is love”.
This advice first appeared in The Guardian
Helen Dunmore (born 12 December 1952) is a British poet, novelist and children’s writer.[1] Educated at the University of York, she now lives in Bristol. She has won awards for her fiction (the Society of Authors’ McKitterick Prize and the Orange Prize) and also for her poetry (she has won the Cardiff International Poetry Prize, been shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize and had her books named as Poetry Book Society Choice and Recommendations). Dunmore is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (FRSL). Some of her children’s books are now included in reading schemes for use in schools.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3ptofxoZb1rnvzfwo1_500.jpg)
Helen Dunmore - On Writing
1 Finish the day’s writing when you still want to continue.
2 Listen to what you have written. A dud rhythm in a passage of dialogue may show that you don’t yet understand the characters well enough to write in their voices.
3 Read Keats’s letters.
4 Reread, rewrite, reread, rewrite. If it still doesn’t work, throw it away. It’s a nice feeling, and you don’t want to be cluttered with the corpses of poems and stories which have everything in them except the life they need.
5 Learn poems by heart.
6 Join professional organisations which advance the collective rights of authors.
7 A problem with a piece of writing often clarifies itself if you go for a long walk.
8 If you fear that taking care of your children and household will damage your writing, think of JG Ballard.
9 Don’t worry about posterity – as Larkin (no sentimentalist) observed “What will survive of us is love”.
This advice first appeared in The Guardian
Helen Dunmore (born 12 December 1952) is a British poet, novelist and children’s writer.[1] Educated at the University of York, she now lives in Bristol. She has won awards for her fiction (the Society of Authors’ McKitterick Prize and the Orange Prize) and also for her poetry (she has won the Cardiff International Poetry Prize, been shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize and had her books named as Poetry Book Society Choice and Recommendations). Dunmore is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (FRSL). Some of her children’s books are now included in reading schemes for use in schools.
"Forget the books you want to write. Think only of the book you are writing."
Henry Miller (from Henry Miller on Writing)
(Source: scottiehughes, via teachingliteracy)
