The moment a man sets his thoughts down on paper, however secretly, he is in a sense writing for an audience, and the fact of his not expecting any particular reader does not prevent him from having a vague composite picture in his mind of the sort of people who will eventually read him.
It can't have feelings. It doesn't have taste, instinct or chemistry. Those things remain profoundly human, and they're essential to good writing. But AI is brilliant at structure and organisation.
Even if you think you have no interest in those topics, it's hard not to be drawn in by Em's super smart writing and analysis, which regularly broadens out to examine wider cultural and societal issues.
Unlike my children, my books are cruelly unforgiving of my weaknesses, failings, and flaws of character. Most of all, my books, unlike my children, do not love me back.
Judges check page length before reading a word. • Long brief? We read faster and with less attention. • Short brief? We slow down and pay closer attention. Brevity signals confidence.
The English language hates the slightest whiff of dishonesty, even levels so small you wouldn't naturally notice them yourself. It punishes you by making your writing worse.
When you start writing directly for readers, without intermediaries, that begins to happen naturally. Above all, I decide to treat the reader as a trusted friend—with the hope that you might extend the same courtesy to me.
She wants to identify how he chooses and places words with the intention of producing material effects on the reader's body. How, exactly, does he make hearts beat faster, stomachs lurch and palms prickle with sweat?
These older books have a sense of integrity. This project was just an opportunity for me to go back to some of my favorite books and look at the ways that's true.
I want to feel what it feels like to make that song go. I think that's taught me to recognize when a song of my own feels right. The same excitement I feel about someone else's song, the desire to be moved, is intact when I'm trying to write my own.
The archived typescript shows that King approached the processes of drafting and revising this novel as a real-time collaboration between himself and Bachman, whom he treated as an alter ego.
3mo ago
Underscored — save the words that stop you in your tracks.
