Negotiating with the Dead

[philosophercat]

"All writing of the narrative kind, and perhaps all writing, is motivated, deep down, by a fear of and a fascination with mortality by a desire to make the risky trip to the Underworld, and to bring something or someone back from the dead."

-Margaret Atwood

One of the writers who came in to talk to us during the editing practicum shared this quote with us and it has haunted me ever since. I love it in a way that's difficult to describe. I've only been able to track it down now. It's from her book 'Negotiating with the Dead' which is about what it means to be a writer.

Do you have any favourite quotes from writers on writing?

-Sophie

Comments

[fondued-jicama.livejournal.com]

I always liked this one from Neil Gaiman:

Learn to draw like you. And as a writer, or as a storyteller, try to tell the stories that only you can tell. Try to tell the stories that you cannot help but tell, the stories you would be telling yourself if you had no audience to listen. The ones that reveal a little too much about you to the world. It’s the point I think of writing as walking naked down the street: it has nothing to do with style, or with genre, it has to do with honesty. Honesty to yourself and to whatever you’re doing.

[philosophercat.livejournal.com]

Very nice. In my travels I've come across only two types of advice about writing: technical and essential. I would say this is 'essential.' The Atwood one is also 'essential.' They are about why you write and how that affects what you do.