Advice for Aspiring Writers

Some writers talk to Oprah - several pages of good stuff:

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Ann

That is several pages of good stuff. I found all very important comments.

Carol

Thanks Ann! Good stuff!

Thanks very much for this, I appreciate it greatly.
This is a magnificent quote;

"Writing is in some way being able to sit down the next day and go through everything you wanted to say, finding the right words, giving shape to the images, and linking them to feelings and thoughts. It isn't exactly like a social conversation because you aren't giving information in the usual sense of the word or flirting or persuading anyone of anything or proving a point; it's more that you are revealing something whole in the form of a character, a city, a moment, an image seen in a flash out of a character's eyes. It's being able to take something whole and fiercely alive that exists inside you in some unknowable combination of thought, feeling, physicality, and spirit, and to then store it like a genie in tense, tiny black symbols on a calm white page. If the wrong reader comes across the words, they will remain just words. But for the right readers, your vision blooms off the page and is absorbed into their minds like smoke, where it will re-form, whole and alive, fully adapted to its new environment. It is a deeply satisfying feeling."
— Mary Gaitskill

Dear Liam,
What a beautiful expression of writing words onto paper for others to read. Great quote!


For me, it is the reason to write. Otherwise I would just be blabbing to my self for myself. It is the need to be understood that is the reason for writing at all. It takes the loneness out of being. It is a mind connection. One day we will find that the power of our brains have been washed right out of us by rules.

Love,
Betty

There are a lot of things I can't do right now, like walking etc. But I can write. I can come here and connect with my writing friends.

I have loved writing my caringbridge blog. And I'm writing small things along the way.

Things that used to bother me, no longer do.

Today my dear husband said he is taking over the kitchen. I said "yeah. I had it for fifty years and you are welcome to it for the next fifty." He has rearranged cabinets. No problem.

I love my family.

I love the people here.

Carol

Dear Carol,
You have much to say and to tell. I am glad that you are a writer and can put it into words. Words lasts. I used to go to old church libraries where the preacher had put his sermons into print, bound them in leather with golden print on the covers. His words were his words, not God's, but they are still there between the covers and a person like me in 2010 can read what he put down in 1832. He never was famous, no one bought his book and perhaps no one ever remembered a word he utted out loud, or a sermon he preached or wrote or which church he preached in. But, his words remain there in that book and a person like me read them over 100 years later.

Write on, my dear friend. Put it all down on paper. Get it into book form, and do not worry about the publisher or who will buy it, or if it will make you famous. You already are.

Love,
Betty

Carol,
as Betty mentioned, keep writing. Someone, now or in the future, will appreciate what you wrote.

I can picture Tom in the kitchen. don't be surprised if he plays on his harmonica, "I did it my way."