http://fictionwritersreview.com/essays/quotes-and-notes-peering-and-leaping-into-the-authorcharacter-vortex-part-ii fiction matters Thu, 09 Feb 2012 03:57:32 -0600 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8 hourly 1 http://fictionwritersreview.com/essays/quotes-and-notes-peering-and-leaping-into-the-authorcharacter-vortex-part-ii/comment-page-1#comment-5756 Fiction Writers Review » Blog Archive » Quotes & Notes: The Writer as Apprentice Tue, 17 May 2011 23:11:28 +0000 http://fictionwritersreview.com/?p=4005#comment-5756 [...] Foremost among the “dark materials” at work in writing is what emerges from poking around in the depths of the self, a process that ushers in literature and is a byproduct of creating it. These materials—the memories, self-conceptions, and lies that slumber inside us and probably ought to be left alone—cannot be approached directly, but can only be made manifest by the creation of art. If I could tell this story the easy way, author after author has said, I would never have needed to write it. The process of making literature requires a certain amount of sorcery, or at the very least alchemy, because it involves transforming deeply personal, non-shareable emotional experience into completely shareable aesthetic experience. (For a more thorough discussion, see “Peering into the Character/Self Vortex,” Part I and Part II). [...] [...] Foremost among the “dark materials” at work in writing is what emerges from poking around in the depths of the self, a process that ushers in literature and is a byproduct of creating it. These materials—the memories, self-conceptions, and lies that slumber inside us and probably ought to be left alone—cannot be approached directly, but can only be made manifest by the creation of art. If I could tell this story the easy way, author after author has said, I would never have needed to write it. The process of making literature requires a certain amount of sorcery, or at the very least alchemy, because it involves transforming deeply personal, non-shareable emotional experience into completely shareable aesthetic experience. (For a more thorough discussion, see “Peering into the Character/Self Vortex,” Part I and Part II). [...]

]]> http://fictionwritersreview.com/essays/quotes-and-notes-peering-and-leaping-into-the-authorcharacter-vortex-part-ii/comment-page-1#comment-2629 Jes Tue, 14 Jul 2009 23:01:47 +0000 http://fictionwritersreview.com/?p=4005#comment-2629 What a fine meditation on what compels the writer to write -- and the misguided attraction of self-therapy on the fictional page. Thanks for such a provocative essay. What a fine meditation on what compels the writer to write — and the misguided attraction of self-therapy on the fictional page. Thanks for such a provocative essay.

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