You don't accomplish much by swimming with the mainstream. Hell, a dead fish can do that.
Kinky FriedmanRead
The art of writing fiction is to sail as dangerously close to the truth as possible without sinking the ship
Interpretation
Writing fiction involves telling truths about life while maintaining the illusion of a story.
Kinky Friedman's quote emphasizes the delicate balance writers must strike between reality and imagination when crafting fiction. It suggests that a truly great piece of fiction can reflect profound truths about human existence, society, and emotions while still being an engaging narrative. The metaphor of sailing close to the truth without sinking the ship highlights the risk involved in storytelling, where getting too close to reality can compromise the story's integrity and artfulness.
In practice
In a writing workshop when discussing the balance of reality in fiction.
You don't accomplish much by swimming with the mainstream. Hell, a dead fish can do that.
Some of the young photographers today enter photography where I leave off. My "grandchildren" astound me. What I worked for they seem to be born with. So I wonder where Their affirmations of Spirit will lead. My wish for them is that their unfolding proceeds to fullness of Spirit, however astonishing or anguished their lives.
My feeling is that for years now it has taken a much too big part in how women are being visually defined today. Heartless retouching should not be the chosen tool to represent women in the beginning of this century.
You have to be lonely to be a writer
I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.
The solitude of writing is a solitude without which writing could not be produced, or would crumble, drained bloodless by the search for something else to write.
Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.
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