On Writing Advice and the People Who Give It
She remembered her dancing days in Somerset, Hunt Balls, and County Balls in the draughty Assembly Rooms. With the best intentions she had never managed to enjoy them. The first hour was well enough, but after that came increasing listlessness and boredom; the effort, when one danced again with the same partner, not to say the same things, combined
... See moreSylvia Townsend Warner • Lolly Willowes
She never managed to match her speech to the cadence of theirs, never quite correctly timed a joke or a laugh.
Emilia Hart • Weyward: Discover the unique, original and unforgettable fiction debut novel of 2023 – a BBC 2 Between the Covers Book Club Pick and #2 Times Bestseller
Have you ever tried such a thing? I have, and it’s impossible, something only a few natural writers or journalists can do, be talking about politics, for example, and at the same time writing a little article on gardening or spondaic hexameters (which I can tell you, boys, are a rare phenomenon).
Roberto Bolaño • The Savage Detectives: A Novel
I stopped going to class not long afterward, and I never went back. Partly because of that incident, and also because the stories and essays I turned into the class always received very bad grades, “D”’s, or “F”’s, probably because I hadn’t followed the instructions. I was supposed to pay attention to character development and the denouement and th... See more