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those comforter hammocks. i must have one. 

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Geoff Dyer’s ten rules for writing fiction

1 Never worry about the commercial possibilities of a project. That stuff is for agents and editors to fret over—or not. Conversation with my American publisher. Me: “I’m writing a book so boring, of such limited commercial appeal, that if you publish it, it will probably cost you your job.” Publisher: “That’s exactly what makes me want to stay in my job.”

2 Don’t write in public places. In the early 1990s I went to live in Paris. The usual writerly reasons: back then, if you were caught writing in a pub in England, you could get your head kicked in, whereas in Paris,dans les cafés … Since then I’ve developed an aversion to writing in public. I now think it should be done only in private, like any other lavatorial activity.

3 Don’t be one of those writers who sentence themselves to a lifetime of sucking up to Nabokov.

4 If you use a computer, constantly refine and expand your autocorrect settings. The only reason I stay loyal to my piece-of-shit computer is that I have invested so much ingenuity into building one of the great auto-correct files in literary history. Perfectly formed and spelt words emerge from a few brief keystrokes: “Niet” becomes “Nietzsche,” “phoy” becomes “photography” and so on. Genius!

5 Keep a diary. The biggest regret of my writing life is that I have never kept a journal or a diary.

6 Have regrets. They are fuel. On the page they flare into desire.

7 Have more than one idea on the go at any one time. If it’s a choice between writing a book and doing nothing I will always choose the latter. It’s only if I have an idea for two books that I choose one rather than the other. I always have to feel that I’m bunking off from something.

8 Beware of clichés. Not just the clichés that Martin Amis is at war with. There are clichés of response as well as expression. There are clichés of observation and of thought—even of conception. Many novels, even quite a few adequately written ones, are clichés of form which conform to clichés of expectation.

9 Do it every day. Make a habit of putting your observations into words and gradually this will become instinct. This is the most important rule of all and, naturally, I don’t follow it.

10 Never ride a bike with the brakes on. If something is proving too difficult, give up and do something else. Try to live without resort to per­severance. But writing is all about perseverance. You’ve got to stick at it. In my 30s I used to go to the gym even though I hated it. The purpose of going to the gym was to postpone the day when I would stop going. That’s what writing is to me: a way of postponing the day when I won’t do it any more, the day when I will sink into a depression so profound it will be indistinguishable from perfect bliss.

(via)

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Billy Wilder’s ten rules of good filmmaking:

1: The audience is fickle. 2: Grab ‘em by the throat and never let ‘em go. 3: Develop a clean line of action for your leading character. 4: Know where you’re going. 5: The more subtle and elegant you are in hiding your plot points, the better you are as a writer. 6: If you have a problem with the third act, the real problem is in the first act. 7: A tip from Lubitsch: Let the audience add up two plus two. They’ll love you forever. 8: In doing voice-overs, be careful not to describe what the audience already sees. Add to what they’re seeing. 9: The event that occurs at the second act curtain triggers the end of the movie. 10: The third act must build, build, build in tempo and action until the last event, and then—that’s it. Don’t hang around.

(via)

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W. G. Sebald reads from Austerlitz at 92Y NYC, October 15, 2001.

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“On the surface [Anton Chekhov’s] ‘The Lady with the Little Dog’ is a love story, and a romantic one at that, but it’s also about the tension between the person we show the world and the one we keep to ourselves. The older I get, the more the story resonates with me.” - Elliott Holt

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“A meritocracy is a system in which the people who are the luckiest in their health and genetic endowment; luckiest in terms of family support, encouragement, and, probably, income; luckiest in their educational and career opportunities; and luckiest in so many other ways difficult to enumerate — these are the folks who reap the largest rewards. The only way for even a putative meritocracy to hope to pass ethical muster, to be considered fair, is if those who are the luckiest in all of those respects also have the greatest responsibility to work hard, to contribute to the betterment of the world, and to share their luck with others.”

Ben Bernanke’s commencement address at Princeton University. (via theatlantic)

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“What’s so hard about that first sentence is that you’re stuck with it. Everything else is going to flow out of that sentence. And by the time you’ve laid down the first two sentences, your options are all gone.”

Joan Didion (via theparisreview)

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We are the very sensuality of the time in which we come and go.

Ko Un, "Time With Dead Poets"

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And stop guarding that heart! (This is true for both writers and contestants on The Bachelor — it’s the only way to win. That, and being a sweet Southern girl with a killer bod.) Amy Hempel has quoted her teacher Gordon Lish as saying, “Wear your heart on the page, and people will read to find out how you solved being alive.” Amen, amen, amen.

Ask the Writing Teacher: A Spork in the Road (via millionsmillions)

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I read Easter Parade recently in one sitting. It was one of those books that grabs you from page one and doesn't let you go until the end. It was incredibly dark, painful, and--book reviewers always use this word, but this is my first time feeling its merit--astonishing. I can't say, though, that I thought it was about renewal. Transformation, yes, but not in the usual Easter sense.

Gilead is on my list of books I want to get to soon. It, along with the rest of Marilynne Robinson's oevre, is sitting on my shelf glaring at me. READ ME, DAMMIT, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?

Well. I am waiting for a goodly sign, Marilynne. Be patient. I am ready to have my socks blown off, but first I want to be wooed. The best books always make me feel like I have read them at the only possible time. 

Easter is winding down. The last painted eggs have been found in the elbows of oak trees and underneath benches. In honor of Easter, here are two books about renewal and transformation. EASTER PARADE

Richard Yates’s classic novel is about how both women struggle to overcome their tarnished family’s past, and how both finally reach for some semblance of renewal.

GILEAD

In the luminous and unforgettable voice of Congregationalist minister John Ames, Gilead reveals the human condition and the often unbearable beauty of an ordinary life.

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Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it.

Tolstoy, A Confession (via bukarin)

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The 25 Greatest Essay Collections of All Time

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There is a difference between writing about yourself and about your personal life. Nowadays- not only in Turkey, but wherever I travel, mostly in Europe- young writers want to turn their lives into books, into novels, because they believe their lives are that important. Mostly I tell those kids who want to be writers that you have to have your own ideas. Of course, I myself am in my novels and books, but I strongly believe that you must distinguish between your life and your ideas.

Buket Uzuner- PEN America Journal #15 (via penamerican)

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People don't change as they age. They just become more elaborate.

Russell Banks

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The strength of the fish is in the water.

Proverb from Zimbabwe

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In the end, only three things matter: how much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you.

Buddhist Saying  (via thatkindofwoman)