The End of an Era

"There were times when I was unhappy as a child."

"I need to know the day and time of everything, so I'll get the weather right."

"I don't believe in Magic. I find it fascinating, but I don't believe in it."

"I is impossible to live without failure at something."

"Life is difficult, and complicate, and beyond anyone's total control."

"We don't need Magic to transform our world. We carry all the power we need inside ourselves already"


J. K. Rowling

4 stages of fiction writers

I am reading "Writing fiction for dummies", and I found out I am almost a sophomore in Fiction writing. Good news, believe you or not!

Sou grande fã de literatura, mas nada nesse mundo se compara a minha grande paixão pelos escritores brasileiros. Porque eles não são somente literatura, eles são ficção - suas vidas são seus melhores romances.

“O que se deve exigir do escritor, antes de tudo, é certo sentimento íntimo, que o torne homem do seu tempo e do seu país, ainda quando trate de assuntos remotos no tempo e no espaço.”

Machado de Assis

Ps. E devo lembrar da grande mentira de que os grandes escritores estão mortos? Afinal, as pessoas não morrem, ficam encantadas, como certa vez disse um certo jagunço de Cordisburgo.

Mark Twain

"Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.”

Hemingway

"When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a caricature."

Fear of Failure

The Fear of Failure

The best way to avoid failure is not to try in the first place. Nobody can have a dig at you for the quality of your writing, or the number of copies of your book you have sold, if you haven’t written it. The same holds true for a new invention, product or service in business.

The signs that this is happening in your life are:

Giving up at the first hurdle

Being overly affected by rejection letters

If you err on the side of the glass being half empty

“At least I know 10,000 things that don’t work,” said Edison when looking for the perfect material for the electric light filament.

Failure is a relative term.

Let’s say you only sold one copy of your book but the person who read it was inspired by it and went on themselves to write a best seller, or change the world, you could rightfully argue that your book was successful.

I think we all agree Dan Brown is one of the most successful authors in history, yet his books attract all kinds of criticism – especially his latest The Lost Symbol. Now I’ve not met Dan Brown but I am guessing he’s not too bothered about this. His aim was probably more to entertain than to write a literary classic – and to make money – so he can be rightfully proud of his achievement of his goals.

So with your first book, a good strategy to avoid failure is to set the parameters up that constitute success – these are all perfectly acceptable for first time authors:
completion of your manuscript

having a copy of a book you have written in your hands

signing a copy for a reader

getting your first review

learning the in’s and out’s of the publishing process

it opens a door, or makes a connection, for you that your wouldn’t have stepped through otherwise

On top of this, any amount of actual sales is a real bonus and any book that sells over even 1,000 copies can be seen as a success for a first timer.

Strategies for Successful Submissions

So if you are submitting a manuscript for submission to a publisher, here’s how to guarantee you cannot possibly fail.

Check with the publisher’s or agent’s web site that they are taking submissions – this avoid failure at the first hurdle

Read their submission guidelines and adhere to them

If you get a rejection, like Edison, learn from it especially if they give you feedback. If they don’t you at least know that they are not right for you or your manuscript at this time.

Do not get angry at them or yourself

When you get accepted, celebrate and shout from the rooftops to give yourself a deserved pat on the back and to encourage others.

So in summary, there is no failure, only learning. The real failures are those who don’t try.

*** Publish Talk ***

5 rules of Scriptwriting

1. No Book Ends!

2. No Book Ends!

3. Never Kill a Dog!

4. Always Save the Kiss to the Very End!

5. Feel Free to Desagree to All These Rules!

(Pirates of The Caribean Scriptwriter - Terry B)

About Trust

One should never trust memory... or computers... or pen drives...
I guess that's all!
Actually, it is not. Don't trust characters either!

Sobre Epígrafes

"Epígrafes não são gratuitos." (José Nascimento Silva)

(Entrevista de "José Nascimento Silva" para a TV Cultura)

In Reply to the question "Why do you write?"

"Because art blows life into the lifeless, death into the
deathless.
Because art's lie is preferable, in truth, to life's beautiful
terror.
Because, as time does not pass (nothing, as Beckett tells us,
passes), it passes the time.
Because death, our mirthless master, is somehow
amused by epitaphs.
Because epitaphs, well-struck, give death, our voracious
master, heartburn.
Because fiction imitates life's beauty, thereby inventing
the beauty life lacks.
Because fiction is the best position, at once exotic
and familiar, for fucking the world.
Because fiction, mediating paradox,
celebrates it.
Because fiction, mothered by love, loves love as a mother
might her unloving child.
Because fiction speaks, hopelessly, beautifully, as
the world speaks.
Because God, created in the storyteller's image, can be
destroyed only by His maker.
Because, in its perversity, art harmonizes the
disharmonious.
Because, in its profanity, fiction sanctifies
life.
Because, in its terrible isolation, writing is a path to
brotherhood.
Because in the beginning was the gesture, and in the end to come
as well: in between what we have are words.
Because, of all the arts, only
fiction can unmake the myths that unman men.
Because of its endearing
futility, its outrageous pretensions.
Because the pen, though short, casts a
long shadow (upon, it must be said, no surface).
Because the world is
re-invented every day and this is how it is done.
Because there is nothing
new under the sun except its expression.
Because truth, that elusive joker,
hides himself in fictions and must therefore be sought there.
Because
writing, in all space's unimaginable vastness, is still the greatest adventure
of all.
And because, alas, what else?"

Coover