Posts Tagged ‘Dany Laferriere’
Best to write in pajama? Part 2
Posted by: adonis49 on: January 24, 2014
Best to write in pajama?
More than 80% of French readers are women. Does this ratio hold for different languages, countries and development stages?
How to advance one step in your dream? Spend a day per month without reading or writing. Keep a foot in reality. Your window is opened to life. Take a peek out the window, now and then…
Keep a version of your manuscript for the time you are ready to say what you think.
A good book doesn’t devour you: It burns your insides in small fires.
Writing is first of all an intimate feast.
Target the reader’s heart, though he reads with his head: Your job is to seduce, not to convince.
Highlight in yellow all the “But” and “May be” in your manuscript: Your temperament will become obvious to you
Rewrite the same page until your emotion is in syncs with the moment
Your editor must sign a particular contract with your mother: She is often mentioned and her contribution is a job to be paid for.
Without the modesty of the readers, there is no literature: The reader has no idea that what is in the novel was generated from him…
Authors relish the scandalous lives of his secretive characters
What count is “Can you lock your suitcase?” How you stuff the suitcase, neatly or haphazardly, is of second importance.
Wait till you feel hungry before you resume writing
An author is hard at work when he is Not thinking of what he is writing about
You are a winner as you learn to desist working against your habit: I write better when it rains…
You know that a chapter is good enough when you feel this urge of pissing
We can reflect on own own, but to assimilate what we cogitate, it is best to discuss it with another person
A good author is perpetually active after his death. And he must have had loads of vanity. Otherwise, he turns mystics at best.
The overwhelming number of characters in novels are of people who can’t read .
It might take an entire life to finish writing a manuscript, with the gravity of a child at play
When you start thinking of only what you are writing, you turn an official author
Don’t throw away anything you wrote: What is not appropriate for your current manuscript will find its place in the pipeline.
Open any book and copy an entire paragraph that you liked: This is called “Making the rich pay”
If you are no longer in the mood for reading, you’ll never know why you are writing
The main problem emerges when the author has become more important than the book
Don’t abuse of mysteries: the majority of readers believe anything
Use a banal style when describing a tragedy: It hits the imagination more powerfully than the emphatic sentences
An author doesn’t write according to your specification: Refrain from remarks on the book when meeting an author
All “pure” ideas are forgotten. As well as books selected as good to read
Reading and writing are two different tasks: Good readers end up bad writers for refusing to accept this evidence.
It is amazing how personal activities such as the urge of making love or writing have impact on the collective life.
Note 1: Quotes from “Author in Pajama” of Dany Laferriere
Note 2: Read part 1 https://adonis49.wordpress.com/2014/01/17/is-your-published-novel-worth-the-tree-chopped-for-you/
Is your published novel worth the tree chopped for you? And Dany Laferriere. Part 1.
Posted by: adonis49 on: January 17, 2014
Is your novel worth the tree chopped for you? Part 1
A few quotes from the French book “Journal of a writer in pajama” by Dany Laferriere.
You have no idea the energy contained in a first novel. It would be beneficial to read many first novels and capture the catalytic drive in order to finish your first novel…
It is almost impossible to finish a novel until you start on the next one. Paradoxically, this closure is difficult since the discouragement on your new novel reverts you to the previous unfinished novel…
You cannot become a good writer if you persist on protecting your mother… (Good writers spread their wings after the passing away of their mothers?)
You always have this choice: Read a good book or write a bad one
When discouraged that all has been said, mind you that all has not been read, particularly you book in progress
A new theme becomes personal when obsessed with
An author suffering from “writer’s block” tends to define “writing”
Too much energy drives you to walk the streets. Too little energy and you won’t leave the bed. Mind to dose the level of energy needed to resume writing…
We are experiencing one war too many, and far lesser “war novels”
Are you in the mood of talking about death? Make one of your characters board the train heading to the war front.
The real literary material is the first person you meet in the street. Stop wasting your time to rediscover yourself
The narrator resembles you. It’s an error to believe that the author is talking about you.
Adding “He said” in a dialogue means that you failed to properly describe and blend the characteristics of the person in the dialogue
Keep writing till the fear disappear. A good author never cease fearing.
Mind you that “silence” is a language. Learn to include silence in your novel and convey it.
Note: Dany Laferriere was born in Haiti in 1953. He published many books, including “Vers le Sud, 2006″ (Southbound), “Enigme du retour, 2009)” (Enigma of the Return) and “Tout bouge autour de moi” (All move around me)
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