But then, that's the beauty of writing stories-each one is an exploratory journey in search of a reason and a shape. And when you find that reason and that shape, there's no feeling like it.
Interpretation
Writing stories is a journey of exploration that leads to a profound sense of fulfillment when purpose is discovered.
This quote by T.C. Boyle reflects the idea that storytelling is not just a creative endeavor, but an exploration of meaning and structure. Each story represents a journey where the writer seeks to uncover reasons and forms that resonate deeply, culminating in a unique and exhilarating experience once those elements are found.
In practice
This quote can be used in a writer's workshop to inspire creativity.
First you have nothing, and then, astonishingly, after ripping out your brain and your heart and betraying your friends and ex-lovers and dreaming like a zombie over the page till you can't see or hear or smell or taste, you have something.
The professorial dictum has always been to write what you know, but I say write what you don't know and find something out. And it works.
I have an idea and a first line -- and that suggests the rest of it. I have little concept of what I’m going to say, or where it’s going. I have some idea of how long it’s going to be -- but not what will happen or what the themes will be. That’s the intrigue of doing it -- it’s a process of discovery. You get to discover what you’re going to say and what it’s going to mean.
Sometimes, when she's out here alone, she can feel the pulse of something bigger, as if all things animate were beating in unison, a glory and a connection that sweeps her out of herself, out of her consciousness, so that nothing has a name, not in Latin, not in English, not in any known language.
There are always surprises. Life may be inveterately grim and the surprises disproportionately unpleasant, but it would be hardly worth living if there were no exceptions, no sunny days, no acts of random kindness.
Architect's designs must refer to the unquestionable perfection of the body's symmetry and proportions. If a building is to create a sense of eurythmia, it is essential that it mirrors these natural laws of harmony and beauty
If our titles recall the known myths of antiquity, we have used them again because they are the eternal symbols upon which we must fall back to express basic psychological ideas.
Rhythm is sound in motion. It is related to the pulse, the heartbeat, the way we breathe. It rises and falls. It takes us into ourselves; it takes us out of ourselves.
The poet, like the lover, is a menace on the assembly line.
These people live again in print as intensely as when their images were captured on old dry plates of sixty years ago... I am walking in their alleys, standing in their rooms and sheds and workshops, looking in and out of their windows. Any they in turn seem to be aware of me.
There is always a subjective aspect in landscape art, something in the picture that tells us as much about who is behind the camera as about what is in front of it.
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