On Writing: Print it off!

I am going to be rather hard-nosed and say that if you have to find devices to coax yourself to stay focused on writing, perhaps you should not be writing what you’re writing. And, if this lack of motivation is a constant problem, perhaps writing is not your forte. I mean, what is the problem? If writing bores you, that is pretty fatal. If that is not the case, but you find that it is hard going and it just doesn’t flow, well, what did you expect? It is work; art is work. Nobody ever said it was easy. What they said is: "Life is short, art is long." 

Ursula K. Le Guin

On Memory

Without memory, there is no culture. Without memory, there would be no civilization, no society, no future. 

Elie Wiesel

Faulkner on Memory

Memory believes before knowing remembers. Believes longer than recollects, longer than knowing even wonders.

William Faulkner

Ghost town

Delta church in a field

Faulkner on home

I wish I was at home, still in the kitchen with my family around me and my hand full of Old Maid cards.

William Faulkner, (when living in Hollywood)

Columbus and Greenville Railway Bridge over the Yazoo River, MS

I am haunted by water, especially the muddy rivers of my childhood. I grew up swimming in lakes and bayous and never once thought of what lived in the water as I do now. One of the happiest moments (recently) in my life was standing on a bridge looking down at the Yazoo River. To say I felt a chill would be an understatement. It was more of a grand attachment like I had been lost, and was now suddenly found. I understood something then that I cannot describe here, some secret about myself, some holy truth and I've been living that truth ever since.

Quote

A man's moral conscience is the curse he had to accept from the gods in order to gain from them the right to dream.   

William Faulkner