It’s hard to predict exactly how a novel will be received, but there are always some surprises. I could not have predicted the brouhaha started by an Alaskan columnist over the fact that the University of Alaska Press published a…
“The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.”
Mark Twain
Writing a novel is a terrible experience, during which the hair often falls out and the teeth decay. I'm always irritated by people who imply that writing fiction is an escape from reality. It is a plunge into reality and it's very shocking to the system.
I was trying to write then and I found the greatest difficulty was to put down what really happened in action; what the actual things were which produced the emotion that you experienced…the real thing, the sequence of motion and fact which made the emotion and which would be as valid in a year or ten years or, with luck and if you stated it purely enough, always.
Ernest Hemingway
Isn’t it queer: there are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before; like the larks in this country, that have been singing the same five notes for thousands of years.
First, find out what your hero wants, then just follow him!
