予秋对《On Writing》的笔记(10)

vii We are writers, and we never ask one another where we get our ideas; we know we don't know. I owe an immense debt of gratitude to her for saying that. I had been playing with the idea of writing a little book about writing for a year or more at that time, but had held back because I didn't trust my own motivations-Why did I want to write about writing? what made me think I had anything worth saying? 吾尝终日而思矣，不如须臾之所学也；吾尝跂而望矣，不如登高之博见也。登高而招，臂非加长也，而见者远；顺风而呼，声非加疾也，而闻者彰。假舆马者，非利足也，而致千里；假舟楫者，非能水也，而绝江河。君子生非异也，善假于物也。——荀子《劝学篇》 50 I was ashamed. I have spent a good many years since - too many, I think - being ashamed about what I write. I think I was forty before I realized that almost every writer of fiction and poetry who has ever published a line has been accused by someone of wasting his or her God-given talent. If you write (or paint or dance or sculpt or sing, I suppose), someone will try to make you feel lousy about it, that is all. I'm not editorializing, just trying to give you the facts as I see them. (YU: truly, but I don't know the same feeling in western culture. That is my really surprise. Sometimes, I got the similar motivation for the same thing. When I was doing research in master degree, some students, even some professors, also make me feel lousy about my writing too much. I didnot say anything about it at that time. I was ashamed as well. I remember I held back and stopped writing for a while, just for someone saying the same thing, and saying I was wasting my talent. what ashamed! Now the same noise is around me as well wherever I was. Finally, I have no time to care about what they were saying. The only way I can do is to close my ear, and then to keep writing. I don't care whatever you say, I care myself because I like it, I like to write, write and write more and more. That is my life. That is all) 50 But in my heart I stayed ashamed. I kept hearing Miss Hisler asking why I wanted to waste my talent, why I wanted to waste my time, why I wanted to write junk. (Yu: but sometimes I was thinking, maybe my writing is not really good. I need practice much more, and read more, read a lot. I think. Those that someone said may be not really bad for me. Maybe I am not good at writing, just a layman showing off there. I am frustrating for this, for god's sake)

52 RD was willing to let bygones be bygones concerning... She commanded both respect and fear; in the tradition of teachers from an earlier ear, Miss Margitan did not want to be your pal, your psychologist, or your inspiration. She was there to teach business skills, and she wanted all learning to be done by the rules. Her rules. Girls in Miss Margitan's classes were sometimes asked to kneel on the floor, and if the hems of their skirts didn't touch the linoleum, they were sent home to change. No amount of tearful begging could soften her, no reasoning could modify her view of the world. Her detention lists were the longest of any teacher in the school, but her girls were routinely selected as valedictorians or salutatorians and usually went on to good jobs. Many came to love her. Others loathed her then and likely still do now, all these years later. (YU: I got the similar teacher before. But I like him and still do now. I don't know why. Maybe I got procrastination. One day, I was out from Uni. I could remember what i would be. It seems at this time, having no journal access, having no internet, no facebook, no google, no chatting with the likes, I live totally alone. That is not just one word lonely, more than this. Sometimes, I am not quite sure why the god treats me like this, even I did not doing anything wrong. Why me? Because of my honest? Why always me? This is not the first time, always me, always treats me like this so cruel. What ashamed. 造化弄人呀)

57 "When you write a story, you're telling yourself the story", he said. "When you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story" (YU: Truly. That is also what the reviewer want to.) 57 Gould said something else that was interesting on the day I turned in my first two pieces: write with the door closed, rewrite with door open. Your stuff starts out being just for you, in other words, but then it goes out. Once you know what the story is and get it right- as right as you can, any way- it belongs to anyone who wants to read it. Or criticize it. If you're very lucky (that is my idea, not John Gould's, but I believe he would have subscribed to the notion), more will want to do the former than the latter. (YU: That is what every writer think, that is my responsibility to clarify this story, rewrite is also important, take this)

69 It crossed my mind that they would make an interesting necklace, then I scooped them out and tossed them in the trash. (YU: It is not the story, but this phrase let me thinking something. Some thoughts involving AG always cross my mind more and more often. I would wonder my decision was right or wrong. Why would I dream over and over again? We cannot email, cannot call, even cannot meet definitely. But I can feel that he was there and he was ready for my paper or technical requests, always. Maybe he was angry with my leaving without saying goodbye. I am struggling to death and struggling to miss.) 70 I'd think this isn't the way our lives are supposed to be going. The I'd think Half the world has the same idea. 74 Writing is a lonely job. Having someone who believes in you makes a lot of difference. They don't have to make speeches. Just believing is usually enough. 78 sometimes you have to go on when you don't feel like it, and sometimes you're doing good work when it feel like all you're managing is to shovel shift form a sitting position. (YU: Sometimes we cannot change, we cannot decide. Sometimes we have to do something when we don't feel like it, I don't like this life now, either.)

78 It occurred to me that Sondra had grown up beneath the agonal gaze of this dying god, and doing so had undoubedly played a part in making what she was when I knew her: a timid and homely outcast who went scuttling through the halls of Lisbon High like a frightened mouse. 80 The girls didn't just laugh at Dodie; they hated her, too. Dodie was everything they were afraid of. 81 I saw her smile fade, saw the light in her eyes first dim and then go out. Someone made a break for the fence and had to be knocked down, that was all. Once the escape was foiled and the entire company of prisoners was once more accounted for, life could go back to normal. (YU: How a sad life am I!)

98 I bargained, because that's what addicts do. I was charming, because that's what addicts are. In the end I got two weeks to think about it. In retrospect, this seems to summarize all the insanity of that time. Guy is standing on top of a burning building. Helicopter arrives, hovers, drops a rope ladder. Clime up! the man leaning out the helicopter's door shouts. Guy on top of the burning building responds, Give me two weeks to think about it. (YU: Just because sometimes I say "give me two weeks to think about it" , I lost everything now, I am just like a kid sitting on that burned building and crying the help. As the light fade away, I am struggling to the death, then I understand the struggling is much harder, the death is much closer, finally, I give in to all, like a pond of dead water, no move, no sing, no smile, I have nothing at all. For god's sake, one more is a cold blood.) Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people - Eleanor Roosevelt

P142 I am approaching the heart of this book with two theses, both simple. The first is that good writing consists of mastering the fundamentals (vocabulary, grammar, the elements of style) and then filling the third level of your toolbox with the right instruments. The second is that while it is impossible to make a competent writer out of a bad writer, and while it is equally impossible to make a great writer out of a good one, it is possible, with lots of hard work, dedication, and timely help, to make a good writer out of a mere competent one. P145 If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There's no way around these two things that I'm aware of, no shortcut. P147 So we read to experience the mediocre and the outright rotten; such experience help us to recognize those things when they begin to creep into our own work, and to steer clear of them. We also read in order to measure ourselves against the good and the great, to get a sense of all that can be done. And we read in order to experience different styles. (YU: when I have read the brochure somewhere, I found so many the words 'case' such as 'in this case, in the case of, in many case, in that case' creeping into my own work, I am finally frustrating at the submitted paper. Sometimes, however, we keep going on, no stops, from 'door shut' to 'door open')

P153 Once I start work on a project, I don't stop and I don't slow down unless I absolutely have to. If I don't write every day, the characters begin to stale off in my mind--they begin to seem like characters instead of real people. The tale's narrative cutting edge starts to rust and I begin to lose my hold on the story's plot and place. Worst of all, the excitement of spinning something new begins to fade. The work starts to feel like work, and for most writers that is the smooch of death. Writing is at its best--always, always, always--when it is a kind of inspired play for the writer. I can write in cold blood if I have to, but I like it best when it's fresh and almost hot to handle. (Yu: I want to write with door shut. So far, I am struggling to death for kyle's enrollment to the primary school. Everything I met everyday is disappointing, I don't know why I came back to this hell again. I cann't shrug off family's call, in particular the child's dad, even I know I made a worst decision in my life. Worst of all, I have nothing left, have nothing to hold when I really came back. I seem as a straw in the salt water, and could be dead in every second, but the life is still carrying on....I really want to shriek out of this noise world,shriek out of the silence, shriek out! ) 一个人彻悟的程度，恰等于他所受痛苦的深度。——林语堂

P159 when I'm asked why I decided to write the sort of thing I do write, I always think the question is more revealing than any answer I could possibly give. Wrapped within it, like the chewy stuff in the center of a Tootsie Pop, is the assumption that the writer controls the materials instead of the other way around. P161 Write what you like, then imbue it with life and make it unique by blending in your own personal knowledge of life, friendship, relationships, sex, and work. Especially work. People love to read about work. God knows why, but they do. What you need to remember is that there's a difference between lecturing about what you know and using it to enrich the story. The latter is good. The former is not. (YU: In these days, I always think about what I have written before. Sometimes, I feel I didn't go to delve the real treasure, just superficial stuff I gained. When I had a outline, and got all the figures&Tables down, I am generally struggling the Discussion Section, what is the mechanism I can obtain from the data? What is the Figures for? What is the real treasure I can get from these results? Usually, I got an good idea, but the Figures were not matched any more. I need to revise over and over again till all done. Nevertheless, since I came back here, I feel I have no energy to revise much more. The papers last days since Oct. are not good as I didn't refine. Like King said, 'writing is refined thinking', but I didn't do well during those days. I have to stop, then to submit a low ranking journal. Why? As you know, when you keep revising much and much more, we can submit a high level one, maybe a nice work like we did before. I should think why.)

P163 Stories are found things, like fossils in the ground. Stories aren't souvenir teeshirts or Gameboys. Stories are relics, part of an undiscovered pre-existing world. The writer's job is to use the tools in his or her toolbox to get as much of each one out of the ground intact possible. Sometimes the fossil you uncover is small; a seashell. Sometimes it's enormous,... Either way, short story or thousand-page whopper of a novel, the technique of excavation remain basically the same. P165 Solid all the way through. P166 I like to work longhand, actually; the only problem is that, once I get jazzed, I cann't keep up with the lines forming in my head and I get frazzled (YU, truly)