Call in Sick More Often →

Jamie Ford, author of the NYT bestseller Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, starts with the release of his first novel and traces its development backwards in time for three years, arriving at last at the spark that got it going: calling in sick to write for a day.

Not that I’m really entertaining any ideas about that right now, but — I can at least admit — it’s inspiring. And tempting, too, honestly.

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This makes me want to write stories about astronauts and spacewalks, rocket ships and aliens and cold black nothingness. I love it. (via itsfullofstars, via dvdp)

"I also like to remind myself of something my dad said to me once in re. writers’ block: “Coal miners don’t get coal miners’ block."

John Green (Paper Towns) answering ideas and inspiration questions.

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"Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work."

Chuck Close

(via Austin Kleon)

God bless you, Mr. Vonnegut. (via nevver)

(via drawnblog)

"The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who’ll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you. If you’re sitting around trying to dream up a great art idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and somthing else that you reject will push you in another direction. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that’s almost never the case."

Chuck Close (via sandyhong & @emilycarroll)

(via drawnblog)

"I’m enjoying writing outside of my comfort zone, but it’s also terrifying and I feel very silly in this first draft stage. But, in my opinion, research is a second draft thing. Until then: fake it until you make it, baby. Write what you want to know, that’s my motto!"

Italics Mine: Things I need to research for my new book

This is very good advice. It’s so much easier to do research when you have a defined list of [fill in later]s. Otherwise it turns into some kind of amorphous goo. “I’ve got to include that!” “Oh that’s so interesting!” Etc.

"I learned to produce whether I wanted to or not. It would be easy to say oh, I have writer’s block, oh, I have to wait for my muse. I don’t. Chain that muse to your desk and get the job done."

Barbara Kingsolver, who worked for years as a technical writer. She considers the daily demand for copy (whether she wanted to write it or not) good practice for her work as a novelist. The whole interview is really good. (via ilovereadingandwriting)

(Source: advicetowriters.com, via libraryland)

Landscapes: Volume Two by Dustin Farrell. Images of Utah and Arizona, as you’ve never seen them before. Watch it fullscreen for the full effect. This is an amazing world that we live in.

If only I could give you this moon.

tovera:

Fredrik Akum

(via tovera-deactivated20111119)