tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28133718.post8877337926793925238..comments2023-06-28T22:58:28.247+10:00Comments on Sixth In Line: In competition with deathElisabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04015624747225433940noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28133718.post-52383040222181956312013-08-08T09:46:20.931+10:002013-08-08T09:46:20.931+10:00Mum, she is clearly not a cat! It's a princes...Mum, she is clearly not a cat! It's a princess face! See the crown and red lips and blue eye shadow?Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08107748783559527754noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28133718.post-86232758919402439382013-07-20T01:02:12.218+10:002013-07-20T01:02:12.218+10:00Write. It will happen and your words will flow.
Write. It will happen and your words will flow.<br />agujahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15857809123531088629noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28133718.post-21683595538268910522013-07-18T04:38:44.475+10:002013-07-18T04:38:44.475+10:00I feel close to the intensity of this post of your...I feel close to the intensity of this post of yours and in particular the rules for writing you have established for yourself, precious and sincere.Tommaso Gervasuttihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17137499390434949734noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28133718.post-54452986471215068532013-07-17T05:29:38.100+10:002013-07-17T05:29:38.100+10:00Good luck Elisabeth, you are a brilliant writer I ...Good luck Elisabeth, you are a brilliant writer I love your writing, I may not always comment but I read every post :)<br />Have fun and don't worry so much!Rosehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05059957468044601830noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28133718.post-41830800389111932532013-07-16T05:10:02.529+10:002013-07-16T05:10:02.529+10:00Hello Elisabeth,
Since first reading your blog, I&...Hello Elisabeth,<br />Since first reading your blog, I've tried to find most excellent and "writerly" ways to praise it, and you. I'm now convinced it's the inevitable result of exposure to your superb work. <br />Your words are so honest and woven with such great skill into a beautifully irresistible tapestry of your life, how can anyone reading them escape the desire to elevate their praise to a similar level?<br />Not me. That's for sure.<br />Sincerely,<br />Gary.Gary L. Everesthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02343464132076469808noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28133718.post-42387457603776741282013-07-15T22:39:45.792+10:002013-07-15T22:39:45.792+10:00I know other writers who leave home to write—Sue R...I know other writers who leave home to write—Sue Reid Sexton does it—but I’ve never felt the need as long as I had, as Virginia Wolff put it, “money and a room of [my] own.” I always wanted an office and I enjoy having one (my tidy haven) but I rarely write there anymore. I wrote the whole of <i>Exit Interview</i> sitting here on the couch in the living room. Carrie’s not a distraction. She rattles away of her laptop—she’s working on formatting the ebook of <i>Making Sense</i> as I write this—and I rattle away on mine and look after the music—just listening to a nice soundtrack by James Horner at the moment (<i>The Life Before Her Eyes</i>). I couldn’t work in a café and I don’t understand those writers who choose to. Far too distracting. Besides I’m one of those people who orders his drink, drinks it and leaves. I tend to use places for what they’re intended for. I would never think of reading on the loo although loos are great places for a few moments of peace and I’ve had countless good ideas whilst spending a penny. That said I suppose writing in the living room contradicts that but then I’m human, not a character in a novel; I’m allowed to be contrary.<br /><br />I’m not sure how I would feel having a <i>real</i> writer a couple of floors below me. I do like to see where other writers work because quite often it’s a kitchen table or something like that. I like the idea of demystifying writing. I am a real writer. I do what real writers do. What real writers do is nothing special. They sit at a keyboard and write. Some have deadlines. Most don’t. TV shows get recorded and some watched, bills get paid, bodies bathed, coffees made, fish fed, cages cleaned. It’s not as if real life gets abandoned but most of these things are done by rote. I don’t <i>think</i> about most of those things. I have my allotted writing time. I write in it, get done whatever I get done, and then it’s time for tea or to watch TV but that’s when the other writing gets done, the subconscious bit, the mysterious bit. One flows into the other. I can’t switch it off.<br /><br />Being a writer is not a character or a role. It’s like saying you can only be a woman in the women’s room. Stupid idea. I don’t like to think of writing as work. Writing is life. I don’t have to work to live—I don’t work—but if I didn’t write I wouldn’t feel as if I was alive. I don’t need to finish a lot although it would be nice if I did but I’m always engaged with the writing, always willing to drop whatever I’m doing to write something new. Maybe that’s the difference between nonfiction and fiction writers. I don’t think of my blogs as real writing. They’re more like a job. It just so happens that I get to exercise my writing skills in the process. I can’t imagine being passionate about nonfiction. I’m pouring emotion into this comment—it’s not that nonfiction is unfeeling—but it’s not the same.<br /><br />I don’t think what you write is “narcissistic claptrap”. You and I process things differently. The novella I’ve just written is so me it’s just not true—it was the first thing that Carrie commented on when she read it—but only someone like Carrie would be able to tell you which are the autobiographical bits and how they’ve been twisted to fit the character on the page. Fiction is a distillation of real life rather than a replication or an evocation. The best lies form around grains of truth. I’m working on an article about the Swiss writer Blaise Cendrars at the moment and he’s a wonderful character. He’s a bit like Dalí. He was perpetually reinventing his past so much so that’s it’s really hard now to know what the truth was. What it was was probably boring. Mostly the truth is.Jim Murdochhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12786388638146471193noreply@blogger.com