My writing is very organic. It's what I am. My mother says I was writing before I was crawling. I wrote in the dirt with a twig. So I think of it as something that's very essential to my being.
The greatest thing by far is to have a command of metaphor. This alone cannot be imparted by another; it is the mark of genius, for to make good metaphors implies an eye for resemblances.
My rule has been, so far as I could have any rule (I could have no cast-iron rule) - my rule has been, to write what I have to say the best way I can - then lay it aside - taking it up again after some time and reading it afresh - the mind new to it. If there's no jar in the new reading, well and good - that's sufficient for me.
We want to be famous as a writer, as a poet, as a painter, as a politician, as a singer, or what you will. Why? Because we really don't love what we are doing. If you loved to sing, or to paint, or to write poems, if you really loved it you would not be concerned with whether you are famous or not.
I write description in longhand because that's hardest for me and you're closer to the paper when you work by hand, but I use the typewriter for dialogue because people speak like a typewriter works.
Have more humility. Remember you don't know the limits of your own abilities. Successful or not, if you keep pushing beyond yourself, you will enrich your own life - and maybe even please a few strangers.
When I first started writing for television in the seventies and eighties, the Internet didn't exist, and we didn't need to worry about foreign websites illegally distributing the latest TV shows and blockbuster movies online.
Poetry is a rhythmical piece of writing that leaves the reader feeling that life is a little richer than before, a little more full of wonder, beauty, or just plain delight.
Men have such a good opinion of themselves, of their mental superiority and intellectual depth; they believe themselves so skilled in discerning the true from the false, the path of safety from those of error, that they should be forbidden as much as possible the perusal of philosophic writings.
Experience of life (not of books) is the only capital usable in such a book as you have attempted; one can make no judicious use of this capital while it is new.
"Though many painters and sculptors talk glibly of "going in for photography," you will find that very few of them can ever make a picture by photography; they lack the science, technical knowledge, and above all the practice. Most people think they can play tennis, shoot, write novels, and photograph as well as any other person - until they try."