There is no rule on how to write. Sometimes it comes easily and perfectly; sometimes it's like drilling rock and then blasting it out with charges.
Interpretation
Writing varies in difficulty and flow, reflecting the creative process's unpredictability.
Ernest Hemingway's quote highlights the contrasting experiences of the writing process, emphasizing that there are no strict guidelines for creativity. It can sometimes flow effortlessly and other times require immense effort and struggle, similar to the physical labor of drilling and blasting rock. This analogy underscores the emotional and intellectual challenges that writers face, reminding us that creativity is often an unpredictable journey.
In practice
In a workshop on creative writing, this quote can inspire students to embrace both the ease and difficulty of their writing journeys.
He no longer dreamed of storms, nor of women, nor of great occurrences, nor of great fish, nor fights, nor contests of strength, nor of his wife. He only dreamed of places now and the lions on the beach. They played like young cats in the dusk and he loved them as he loved the boy. He never dreamed about the boy. He simply woke, looked out the open door at the moon and unrolled his trousers and put them on.
How did you go bankrupt?" Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.
When you have shot one bird flying you have shot all birds flying. They are all different and they fly in different ways but the sensation is the same and the last one is as good as the first.
There is never any ending to Paris and the memory of each person who has lived in it differs from that of any other. We always returned to it no matter who we were or how it was changed or with what difficulties, or ease, it could be reached. Paris was always worth it and you received return for whatever you brought to it. But this is how Paris was in the early days when we were very poor and very happy.
Wine is the most civilized thing in the world.
Because we would not wear any clothes because it was so hot and the windows open and the swallows flying over the roofs of the houses and when it was dark afterward and you went to the window very small bats hunting over the houses and close down over the trees and we would drink capri and the door locked and it hot and only a sheet and the whole night and we would both love each other all night in the hot night in Milan. That was how it ought to be.
Am I nostalgic for film? … I mean, it’s had a good run, hasn’t it? You know, I’m not nostalgic for a technology. I’m nostalgic for the kind of films that used to be made that aren’t being made now.
Writing for television is completely different from movie scriptwriting. A movie is all about the director's vision, but television is a writer's medium.
You can't perish because of your own feelings; you have to embrace those things as an actor because it's part of your palette.
I often will write a scene from three different points of view to find out which has the most tension and which way I'm able to conceal the information I'm trying to conceal. And that is, at the end of the day, what writing suspense is all about.
There are no lines in nature, only areas of colour, one against another.
This profusion of eccentricities, this dream in masonry and living rock is not a drop scene in a theatre, but a city in the world of reality.
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