Below are mostly rewrites (from memory) of things I have said to other people on YWS - by chat / review / PM - or, more rarely, something particularly memorable someone else has said to me. Some may be memory-failure rehashes of commonly known quotes also.
Oh, and, it goes without saying that all of Gal's reviews are full of fantastic one-liners.
WRITING DISCOVERIES / RANDOM THINGS
Good art appears effortless.
Learn the art of silence in poetry.
A perfect writer is one on whose writing you dare not embellish, write further about; a masterpiece speaks for itself.
We do not write masterpieces everyday. We write everyday, and hope that a masterpiece stands a greater chance of appearing.
Timing is everything. So, work on enjambment and flow.
I speak in generalities because – where bad work is concerned – they are so often true.
A masterpiece reveals its heart on the first draft.
I love good one-liners, killer endings and snappy beginnings.
Tell me more. I am terribly aesthetically needy like that. (rehash of a HELPFUL MCHELPFULPANTS' comment)
You must appeal to my heart, my aesthetic, before you can dare think of appealing to my mind and intellect.
We circle around to the same themes, the same stories, time and time again. Everything is recyclable, rewritable. There are countless ways of telling the same story. Seven years ago, the best poem I had written was about death and war. Now, this year’s masterpiece was also about death and war – just at the microscopic level of the individual.
Sometimes, I think writers write for writers.
It takes a poet to appreciate the art of another poet.
Analysis is like sex: we must deconstruct, but also reconstruct the text.
Intelligence and imagination walk hand in hand.
Don’t dive in expecting to uncover the meaning of life. You’ll hit a brick wall. Instead, talk about little things, petty things, the trivial, and perhaps you will say something important about life.
Make it matter to me.
There is no new theme. There is no story, no plot, no character that hasn’t already been told somewhere, sometime, by someone. Where originality comes in, is in execution. Style.
I don’t give a damn what you say as long as you say it right.
I don’t know if I prefer intensity and depth to subtlety and softness. I guess I remember the former more, but the latter is just as sweet.
Sophistication and the mainstream do not go well together.
Right now, all you’ve got is a skeleton. Give it some flesh, a heart, and see what you end up with. It’s bloody hard to love a skeleton.
Overwriting is a disease. Only writers so pathetically weak that they do not trust their readers, or that they do not trust themselves, overwrite.
I either like description done well, or not at all. Don’t half-ass it.
If you can’t avoid talking about love, then don’t.
Don’t aim to write everyday. Instead, live everyday, and hope something worth writing about will occur.
I talk in paradoxes because everything is a paradox.
A perfect poem shimmers in front of you. Not wholly down-to-earth and tangible, but not wholly up-in-the-clouds and intangible, either. I need a healthy dose of reality and abstraction.
Leave something for the audience to simmer in.
There are two reactions a great work will generate: incoherencey and inspiration. Only the unwise get jealous.
KYLAN: I can judge the quality of a work by how much it inspires me.
Jeez, it’s just one work. Don’t beat yourself up about it.
We’re crazy about poetry, right? On the one hand, we refine it till we’re blue in the face. On the other, it’s all just a game, an extraordinary puzzle.
Never trust anyone who lavishes just praise.
I’m not going to do a line-by-line, because there’s no point. The problems are all general.
I want passion from you.
Untitled works drive me crazy. I agree that art and life should be equally incomplete, so give it a title that is an extension of the work rather than a summary.
EVI: Galerius should really start acting like a 12 year old girl. ME: Also, his reviews are my only source of entertainment on YWS.
YWS is not a destination. YWS is a brief stop-off to replenish your caffeine supply.
Writing and facebook are not so different. Both have an element of shouting into the dark to assure yourself you exist.
Look, I still love you despite that review.
I think it’s happened. I know you too well. I am so unobjective now that I am useless.
There’s a difference between ‘me’ and ‘I’, goddammit! I am not the narrator!
I hesitate to preface works. They should speak for themselves.
ME: I don’t understand. If art is about entertainment and enhancement, then why the paradox: why escape reality and need it? KYLAN: Because we need a reality to escape from.
Nostalgia is the best feeling. It’s equivalent to pretending the past was rosy so that the present might look worse. You can only find a story in suffering.
Humour is so underrated. I’m only human; I love a good laugh.
What’s in a word? I’ll tell you what: if you use the wrong one, I will throttle you.
Don’t write to put words on paper. Write to put life on paper.
But – but – but – why are so many YWSers scientists?
I don’t like grocery-shopping lists in poetry. Give me depth over breadth any day.
Don’t put too much of yourself into your writing. Leave some of yourself for yourself.
If you think you can’t write, then just writewritewrite. You need to get those damned clichés out of your system somehow.
Only experience gives an acute awareness of the cliché.
Surprise me. Freshness is why we crave art.
If you’ve never done a chat crit-edit, you don’t know the wonder of impromptu revision. It does wonders for Editor’s Block.
Make the ordinary seem extraordinary.
Don’t be such a pompous ass. Say it like it is.
I get too much fun out of writing to pursue it as a career.
Gender:
Points: 62375
Reviews: 315