Writing

Writing is weird.

You make these scratches on paper and they mean something to you. Maybe something very profound. Maybe a shopping list.

But to some, they would be just symbols, squiggles. Nothing. Meaningless.

When I write down my thoughts, they become much clearer to me. I can understand better what I am actually thinking and feeling when I write it all down.

People would argue much less if they had to stop and put their thoughts down, coherently, on paper before they opened their mouths.

A novel that does not uncover a hitherto unknown segment of existence is immoral. Knowledge is the novel's only morality.

(Milan Kundera)

I cannot accept the doctrine that in poetry there is a »suspension of belief.« A poet must never make a statement simply because it is sounds poetically exciting; he must also believe it to be true.

W. H. Auden (1907 – 1973)

Writing is like getting married. One should never commit oneself until one is amazed at one's luck.

Murdoch, Iris (1919)
Irish-born British novelist. The Black Prince, `Bradley Pearson's Foreword', 1974

Introverts prefer to write out their feelings, while extroverts prefer to talk them out. Considering that many couples are intro/extrovert pairs, it's a wonder that any of us communicate effectively at all!

By writing, I find out what I'm thinking. A clumsy method? Otherwise I'd never find out.

Novels are to literature what panoramas are to art.