“Put All Those Nasty Thoughts You Have To Use” - Deepstash
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“Put All Those Nasty Thoughts You Have To Use”

”If someone asks me, ‘Why do you write?’ I can reply by pointing out that it is a very dumb question. Nevertheless, there is an answer. I write because I hate. A lot. Hard. And if someone asks me the inevitable next dumb question, ‘Why do you write the way you do?’ I must answer that I wish to make my hatred acceptable because my hatred is much of me, if not the best part. Writing is a way of making the writer acceptable to the world—every cheap, dumb, nasty thought, every despicable desire, every noble sentiment, every expensive taste.

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“Don’t Write To Teach”

“I don’t believe in the novel that teaches. When you’re teaching, you’re engaged with something other than yourself. When you’re writing novels, you’re bringing things mainly out of yourself. You may be trying to make something that’s not autobiographical or self-reflective, but it’s made...

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60 reads

WILLIAM H. GASS

...yes, words were superior; they maintained a superior control; they touched without your touching; they were at once the bait, the hook, the line, the pole, and the water in between.

WILLIAM H. GASS

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81 reads

“Get Even (Get Justice)”

“Getting even is one great reason for writing. The precise statement of the motive is tricky, but the clearest expression of my unwholesome nature and my mean motives appears in a line I like in [one of my books]: the character says, “I want to rise so high that when I shit I won’t miss anybody.”...

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106 reads

WILLIAM H. GASS

The true alchemists do not change lead into gold; they change the world into words.

WILLIAM H. GASS

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85 reads

WILLIAM H. GASS

Works of art are meant to be lived with and loved, and if we try to understand them, we should try to understand them as we try to understand anyone—in order to know them better, not in order to know something else.

WILLIAM H. GASS

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76 reads

A Writer Interested In How One Writes Anything

William H. Gass was a boundary-breaking experimental writer, as well as a critic, essayist and philosophy professor. Most importantly, Gass was a reigning master of the art of the sentence, and every one he wrote, he wrote with singular purpose. “If I am anything as a writer, tha...

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203 reads

“Be Stubborn, Even In The Face Of Rejection”

“I was turned down for ten years. I couldn’t get a thing in print. My writing went nowhere. I guess you have to be persistent. Talent is just one element of the writing business. You also have to have a stubborn nature. That’s rarer even than the talent, I think. You have to be grimly det...

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133 reads

“Don’t Write For Anybody”

“I don’t think much about the reader. Ways of reading are adversaries—those theoretical ways. As far as writing something is concerned, the reader really doesn’t exist. The writer’s business is somehow to create in the work something which will stand on its own and make its own demands; a...

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73 reads

“Don’t Despair”

“Try to remember that artists in these catastrophic times, along with the serious scientists, are the only salvation for us, if there is to be any. Be happy because no one is seeing what you do, no one is listening to you, no one really cares what may be achieved, but sometimes accidents ...

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74 reads

“See Around Your Subject”

“Even an ideologically driven artist who is working well has got to do that. Oh, he can create a character who speaks brilliantly from a half-baked point of view, but he cannot create a drama of conflict between points of view unless he can imaginatively put himself in two positions… Any ...

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90 reads

“Revise, Revise, Revise”

“I write slowly because I write badly. I have to rewrite everything many, many times just to achieve mediocrity. Time can give you a good critical perspective, and I often have to go slow so that I can look back on what sort of botch of things I made three months ago. Much of the stuff wh...

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77 reads

CURATED FROM

IDEAS CURATED BY

xarikleia

“An idea is something that won’t work unless you do.” - Thomas A. Edison

Thoughts on creativity, creators and their creations, three things that we have come to consider consubstantial, coincident and coexistent, but that are fundamentally separate and disparate.

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1) How have you approached building professional relationships while working remotely?

Here’s a few ideas on how to address this question in a thoughtful way:

Gettingto know a new person can be so tough without ever getting the chance to meet in person, so if I get the opportunity to get to know your staff, I plan to do my best to take every opportunity to share m...

8. Pick the battles to fight. Wisely

Ask yourself a set of questions before engaging in any activity:

  • Does spending time on this bring me closer to my goal? Personal or professional, it works wonders every time. If the answer is no, just don’t.
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4. You raise your self-esteem

4. You raise your self-esteem

If I do the right things today I feel really good about myself. If I don't then I don't feel good about myself.

A common question is: “How can I raise my self-esteem?”. The answer is not an easy answer of course (otherwise people wouldn't have so much self-esteem problems in the world today...

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