高妹
"Art is the depth, the passion, the desire,the courage to be myself and myself
alone."
~ Pat Schneider
1. 關於別人的建議
“I have made three rules of writing for myself that are absolutes: Never take advice. Never show or discuss work in progress. Never answer a critic.” ~ Raymond Chandler
這是我非常讚同、也非常向往的三個準則，可惜，（寫連載的時候）一個也沒能做到。
關於第三條，與文學評論有關的：
Literature is strewn with the wreckage of men who have minded beyond reason the opinions of others. ~ Virginia Woolf
Pay no attention to what the critics say; there has never been set up a statue in honor of a critic. ~ Jean Sibelius
所以要不斷告誡自己：少參與評論，多寫作品。
2. 不瘋魔不成佛
“Many people hear voices when no-one is there. Some of them are called mad and are shut up on rooms where they stare at the walls all day. Others are called writers and they do pretty much the same thing.” ~ Meg Chittenden
這個在不寫作的人來看，矯情。但我想凡是自己經常動筆的，沒有人會反對——我們有好多方麵和瘋子差不多。
另外，瘋狂與魔鬼也經常聯係在一起。通常的說法是，聽魔鬼的：
Occasionally, there arises a writing situation where you see an alternative to what you are doing, a mad, wild gamble of a way for handling something, which may leave you looking stupid, ridiculous or brilliant -you just don't know which. You can play it safe there, too, and proceed along the route you'd mapped out for yourself. Or you can trust your personal demon who delivered that crazy idea in the first place. Trust your demon. ~ Roger Zelazny
反對“中庸”，鼓勵“極端”：
Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go. ~ T. S. Eliot
3. 反噬。
Writers are not just people who sit down and write. They hazard themselves. Every time you compose a book your composition of yourself is at stake. ~ E.L. Doctorow
這個也非常同意啊。看起來是你在創造書，其實書也在反過來創造你。每次認認真真寫完一本書，你就不是之前那個你了。
4. 置之死地
I would never write about anyone who is not at the end of his rope. ~ Stanley Elkin
這句話乍一看容易引起爭議——難道隻有生離死別、大災大難才能寫嗎？其實不是這個意思。倘若一個人想學養魚，養一條死一條，養一條死一條。最後他弄到了一條特別疼愛的魚，這個魚又重病了，那麽這個人，就是到了這件事的“絕境”。
5. 取悅別人。
I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody. ~ Bill Cosby
無條件讚成啊！關於“取悅別人”的還有不少：
If you try to please audiences, uncritically accepting their tastes, it can only mean that you have no respect for them: that you simply want to collect their money. ~ Andrei Tarkovsky
要做自己：
Write something to suit yourself and many people will like it; write something to suit everybody and scarcely anyone will care for it. ~ Jesse Stuart
Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It's the one and only thing you have to offer. ~ Barbara Kingsolver
這一類當中，經常會提到“market”這個詞。寫作到底應不應該根據市場需求，什麽題材流行來寫。我看到的，基本都是反麵的：
Write from the soul, not from some notion what you think the marketplace wants. The market is fickle; the soul is eternal. ~ Jeffrey A. Carver
If you try to make something just to fit your uninformed view of some hypothetical market, you will fail. If you make something special and powerful and honest and true, you will succeed. ~ Hugh Macleod
市場，通常也關係到錢：
Art suffers the moment other people start paying for it. The more you need the money, the more people will tell you what to do. The less control you will have. The more bullshit you will have to swallow. The less joy it will bring. Know this and plan accordingly. ~ Hugh Macleod
6．孤獨與無助
必須有勇氣一條路走到黑：
Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no help at all. ~ Dale Carnegie
What is needed is, in the end, simply this: solitude, great inner solitude. Going into yourself and meeting no one for hours on end--that is what you must be able to attain. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke
7. 一些寫作方麵的細節：
關於感歎號：
Exclamation points are the most irritating of all. Look! they say, look at what I just said! How amazing is my thought! It is like being forced to watch someone else’s small child jumping up and down crazily in the center of the living room shouting to attract attention. If a sentence really has something of importance to say, something quite remarkable, it doesn’t need a mark to point it out. And if it is really, after all, a banal sentence needing more zing, the exclamation point simply emphasizes its banality! ~ Lewis Thomas
所以我盡量少用、少用感歎號。
關於qualifier，“我猜，我估計啊，大概吧，kind of, sort of”：
Don’t hedge your prose with little timidities. Good writing is lean and confident. . . . Every little qualifier whittles away some fraction of the reader’s trust. Readers want a writer who believes in himself and in what he is saying. Don’t diminish that belief. Don’t be kind of bold. Be bold. ~ William Zinsser
關於pace:
If you think you're boring your audience, go slower not faster. ~ Gustav Mahler
細節是不會讓人厭煩的，大部分新手的問題是 the lack of details.
8. 治愈
Sharing our stories can also be a means of healing. Grief and loss may isolate us, and anger may alienate us. Shared with others, these emotions can be powerfully uniting, as we see that we are not alone, and realize that others weep with us. ~ Susan Wittig Albert
所以作家們是不會停筆的，即使一分錢也不掙。
