The pleasure of writing fiction is that you are always spotting some new approach, an alternative way of telling a story and manipulating characters; the novel is such a wonderfully flexible form.
Interpretation
Writing fiction allows for creativity and innovation in storytelling.
Penelope Lively highlights the joy of writing fiction, emphasizing its inherent flexibility and the opportunities it offers for exploring new narrative techniques and character development. Through fiction, writers can constantly discover fresh perspectives and unique ways to engage with their audience, making the craft dynamic and ever-evolving.
In practice
During a writing workshop, I shared a quote from Penelope Lively to inspire my peers to explore new story ideas.
All I know for certain is that reading is of the most intense importance to me; if I were not able to read, to revisit old favorites and experiment with names new to me, I would be starved - probably too starved to go on writing myself.
In old age, you realise that while you're divided from your youth by decades, you can close your eyes and summon it at will. As a writer it puts one at a distinct advantage.
The present hardly exists, after all-it becomes the past even as it happens. A tricky medium, time - and central to the concerns of fiction.
Giving presents is one of the most possessive things we do, did you realize that? It's the way we keep a hold on other people. Plant ourselves in their lives.
The idea that memory is linear is nonsense. What we have in our heads is a collection of frames. As to time itself-can it be linear when all these snatches of other presents exist at once in your mind? A very elusive and tricky concept, time.
I'm the oldest son of a crazy man, I'm in a cowboy band.
How did writing come to me? Like bird’s down on my windowpane, in winter. Just then there rose in the heart a struggle of firebrands, which has, still now, not ended.
Hip-hop is a beautiful culture. It's inspirational, because it's a culture of survivors. You can create beauty out of nothingness.
A painter's tastes must grow out of what so obsesses him in life that he never has to ask himself what it is suitable for him to do in art.
If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph: THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD WAS MUSIC
I think by shattering it we can create a new form, a new way to look at what is valuable — how we decide what is valuable.
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