Good writing, surely, occurs when we somehow make ourselves as open as possible to intense, half-conscious impulses, even though the expression of them will make us uncomfortable because they matter so much. Revision is learning to read our work as if someone else had written it, paying attention to our confusions, lapses of interest, our disbelief or failure to care.
– Mattison, A. (2004). “Coincidence in Stories : An Essay Against Craft.” Writer’s Chronicle 36(6): 10.
[Thursday 3pm #17] Good writing : a quote
23 Thursday Jul 2009
Posted quotes, Series: Thursday 3pm feature posts (2009), writing
in
Stendhal (sorry to bring him up again!) liked to write without a full plan, winging it, so to speak, inventing as he went along, surprising himself. (There were some notes and intentions, and masses of revision. Never did anyone so annotate their own margins as on his manuscripts.) One of his major works was dictated rather than written — I imagine that to be the ultimate in “making oneself open to impulses” — I would find it very hard to do…
LikeLike
Me too. 🙂 I’m not sure what I think about Mattison’s idea here, but it seemed worth considering, and her article is very good.
LikeLike