You know that sickening feeling of inadequacy and over-exposure you feel when you look upon your own empurpled prose? Relax into the awareness that this ghastly sensation will never, ever leave you, no matter how successful and publicly lauded you become. It is intrinsic to the real business of writing and should be cherished.
Will Self
So I was smacked out on the Prime Minister's jet, big deal.
big
Vaughn's vision is older, wiser and harder than Ritchie's [on film Layer Cake]
vision film
A funny yet interesting read, Will Self knowa his stuff and must do a lot of deep research.
funny humour
Regard yourself as a small corporation of one. Take yourself off on team-building exercises (long walks). Hold a Christmas party every year at which you stand in the corner of your writing room, shouting very loudly to yourself while drinking a bottle of white wine. Then masturbate under the desk. The following day you will feel a deep and cohering sense of embarrassment.
writing writers wine embarrassment masturbation
Always carry a notebook. And I mean always. The short-term memory only retains information for three minutes; unless it is committed to paper you can lose an idea for ever.
writing memory ideas journals
writing prose critical
Don't look back until you've written an entire draft, just begin each day from the last sentence you wrote the preceding day. This prevents those cringing feelings, and means that you have a substantial body of work before you get down to the real work which is all in.. The edit.
writing writing-advice
For the rest, silence or good music, not much food, a lot of solitude, walks on the Heath, the time to think while others.. Well, often fall apart. Not so bad, not so bad at all. Being queer and self-sufficient is the best present at this season.
christmas
I explained to him - as I withdrew the cup, ripped open the sachet and dunked the tea bag - that tea was an infusion, which meant that it was vital for the water to be actually boiling when it came into contact with the leaves. He looked at me furiously.. I had behaved like this many times before: taking Canute's stance in the path of the great surge of ill-brewed tepid tea that was inundating England.
tea
Wealth is a form of power in our society. With great power comes great responsibility. If you have too much wealth, ipso facto, you have too much power - therefore you have too much responsibility - and you're a kind of dictator.
wealth power society
I have a healthy appetite for solitude. If you don't, you have no business being a writer.
solitude business
I think of writing as a sculptural medium. You are not building things. You are removing things, chipping away at language to reveal a living form.
language
The seventies were my fattest decade. Overall I think the seventies were distinctly bulbous. People looked chunky, typefaces were rounded, writing implements penile.
typography typeface
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