You Are Oceanic

in a strange way

Usually the idea for a novel comes to me, in a strange way, from reading rather than from living or observation. It’s often what I can only call an intellectual concern – some sort of large issue I’ve got very interested in. The operation of memory is an obvious one because several novels have been prompted by that. Or again the nature of evidence – that’s another important theme to me. Then the problem is to find the vehicle, to find the story and the characters and the backdrop, because they’re going to be the vehicle for this idea. Because then I don’t want the idea to show very much; I want the idea to be a sort of seven-eighths of the iceberg, a kind of ballast, but without which the whole novel would flounder.

Penelope Lively
On writing: authors reveal the secrets of their craft
The Guardian, 26th March 2011

write regularly

You can only write regularly if you’re willing to write badly…Accept bad writing as a way of priming the pump, a warm-up exercise that allows you to write well.

Jennifer Egan
Why We Write: 20 Acclaimed Authors on How and Why They Do What They Do edited by Meredith Maran

Always remember this truth –

Every silver lining has a cloud!

Sharks