Holy The Firm

vronsky — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 17:12:37 -0800

Literate c1980 acid trip ~v~

Dillard's How-To

digaman — Mon, 10 Jan 2005 06:35:53 -0800

Do you want to be a writer? "Write as if you were dying. At the same time, assume you write for an audience consisting solely of terminal patients. That is, after all, the case. What would you begin writing if you knew you would die soon?... Every book has an intrinsic impossibility, which its writer discovers as soon as his first excitement dwindles. The problem is structural; it is insoluble; it is why no one can ever write this book. Complex stories, essays and poems have this problem, too -- the prohibitive structural defect the writer wishes he had never noticed. He writes it in spite of that." Luminous and wise writing advice from Annie Dillard, author of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, one of the most beautiful books written in the last hundred years (published when Dillard was 29). As a writer myself, I am often asked by younger folk how to become one. Dillard says best what I would tell them.

MetaFilter posts tagged with AnnieDillard

Holy The Firm

Dillard's How-To