4 ms·

Ernest Hemingway, the Art of Fiction No. 21 (1958)

77 points by samclemens 9y ago

l5870uoo9y 9y ago
> INTERVIEWER > Can you dismiss from your mind whatever project you’re on when you’re away from the typewriter? > HEMINGWAY > Of course. But it takes discipline to do it and this discipline is acquired. It has to be. An important disciplinary skill to acquire.
protonfish 9y ago
This sounds so much like the environment that I have learned is good for my programming productivity > The door between the two is kept ajar by a heavy volume listing and describing The World’s Aircraft Engines. The bedroom is large, sunny, the windows facing east and south letting in the day’s light on white walls... Lit with sunlight, and moderately private.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
bernardino 9y ago
> The further you go in writing the more alone you are. I took a creative writing course not too long ago, and I find this to be true. The best writing I have done is when I am surrounded and embodied by my aloneness/solitude/silence. It’s a place where you feel your room/life is full of yourself. I remember vividly being in front of my computer, writing a piece on iA Writer. I would drift off into these imaginary places in my mind, thinking about what I want to say and how I want to say it, then I would recall a line from a book where I would then draw inspiration from. Ultimately it was: writing, dreaming, talking to myself in my mind, rereading out loud, rewriting, going to get a glass of water and walking to my backyard for a breather yet still full of myself and the piece I am writing, etc. But it takes a while to get into that state, a place where you are full yourself. Some people may call this state, the flow state. I find it easier to get into that state late at night, a time where I open the window, the air is cool and fresh, and the crickets are chirping away. Otherwise, I wish Albert Camus had done one of these Art of Fiction interviews.
longerthoughts 9y ago
It's remarkable how powerfully he resists the interviewer's prompts to recount people, events, and work from his past. It's as if he's painfully aware of peoples' (perhaps writers in particular) tendency to fabricate cohesive, compelling narratives based on fragments of memory and avoids it entirely for fear of saying something that lacks authenticity. It's particularly apparent when the interviewer brings up things Hemingway is quoted as saying, prompting responses that seem to carry some combination of resentment and shame.

77 points by samclemens 9y ago

> INTERVIEWER > Can you dismiss from your mind whatever project you’re on when you’re away from the typewriter? > HEMINGWAY > Of course. But it takes discipline to do it and this discipline is acquired. It has to be. An important disciplinary skill to acquire.

protonfish 9y ago

This sounds so much like the environment that I have learned is good for my programming productivity > The door between the two is kept ajar by a heavy volume listing and describing The World’s Aircraft Engines. The bedroom is large, sunny, the windows facing east and south letting in the day’s light on white walls... Lit with sunlight, and moderately private.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

bernardino 9y ago

> The further you go in writing the more alone you are. I took a creative writing course not too long ago, and I find this to be true. The best writing I have done is when I am surrounded and embodied by my aloneness/solitude/silence. It’s a place where you feel your room/life is full of yourself. I remember vividly being in front of my computer, writing a piece on iA Writer. I would drift off into these imaginary places in my mind, thinking about what I want to say and how I want to say it, then I would recall a line from a book where I would then draw inspiration from. Ultimately it was: writing, dreaming, talking to myself in my mind, rereading out loud, rewriting, going to get a glass of water and walking to my backyard for a breather yet still full of myself and the piece I am writing, etc. But it takes a while to get into that state, a place where you are full yourself. Some people may call this state, the flow state. I find it easier to get into that state late at night, a time where I open the window, the air is cool and fresh, and the crickets are chirping away. Otherwise, I wish Albert Camus had done one of these Art of Fiction interviews.

longerthoughts 9y ago

It's remarkable how powerfully he resists the interviewer's prompts to recount people, events, and work from his past. It's as if he's painfully aware of peoples' (perhaps writers in particular) tendency to fabricate cohesive, compelling narratives based on fragments of memory and avoids it entirely for fear of saying something that lacks authenticity. It's particularly apparent when the interviewer brings up things Hemingway is quoted as saying, prompting responses that seem to carry some combination of resentment and shame.