Writing is just work-there's no secret. If you dictate or use a pen or type or write with your toes-it's still just work.
Interpretation
Writing is simply a task that requires effort, regardless of the method used.
Sinclair Lewis emphasizes that writing, like any other form of labor, requires dedication and effort. The essence of writing lies not in the tools or techniques used, but in the commitment and hard work behind the process.
In practice
In a workshop about overcoming writer's block, this quote can inspire attendees to stay committed to their craft.
Upon this theology he rarely pondered. The kernel of his practical religion was that it was respectable, and beneficial to one's business, to be seen going to services; that the church kept the Worst Elements from being still worse; and that the pastor's sermons, however dull they might seem at the time of taking, yet had a voodooistic power which 'did a fellow good-- kept him in touch with Higher Things.
Intellectually I know that America is no better than any other country; emotionally I know she is better than every other country.
Writers kid themselves-about themselves and other people. Take the talk about writing methods. Writing is just work-there's no secret. If you dictate or use a pen or type with your toes-it is just work.
She did her work with the thoroughness of a mind which reveres details and never quite understands them.
It is, I think, an error to believe that there is any need of religion to make life seem worth living.
There are dozens of young poets and fictioneers most of them a little insane in the tradition of James Joyce, who, however insane they may be, have refused to be genteel and traditional and dull.
I discovered that the most interesting music of all was made by simply lining the loops in unison, and letting them slowly shift out of phase with other.
No story lives unless someone wants to listen. So thank you, all of you.
Poems infatuated with their own smarts and detached from any emotional grounding can leave the reader feeling lonely, empty and ashamed for having expected more. Like icy adolescents, such poetry is more interested in commiserating than acknowledging that feelings β the sentiments that make us susceptible to sentimentality β actually exist.
To allow only the kind of art that the average man understands is the worst small-mindedness and the murder of mind and spirit. It is my conviction that the intellect can be certain that in doing what most disconcerts the crowd, in pursuing the most daring, unconventional advances and explorations, it will in some highly indirect fashion serve man - and in the long run, all men.
Art is a lie that makes us realize truth.
However, there's no theme or concept behind Heathen, just a number of songs but somehow there is a thread that runs through it that is quite as strong as any of my thematic type albums.
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