Wisdom from Oscar Wilde

The Telegraph yesterday featured an article on a recently discovered letter that Oscar Wilde wrote to a would-be writer around 1890.  It felt like he was speaking to me from the dawn of the last century:

"The best work in literature is always done by those who do not depend on it for their daily bread, and the highest form of literature, Poetry, brings no wealth to the singer... Make some sacrifice for your art and you will be repaid but ask of art to sacrifice itself for you and a bitter disappointment may come to you."

To me this sounds like: "so you're a novelist who earns her living as a receptionist? Excellent!  You're able to let your art remain art!  I know you dream of one day earning your living by your novels, but it might not be as rosy as you think.  Until then, use this time to grow as a writer and a student of language and see where it takes you.  You might go farther than you think."  Thank you, Mr. Wilde.

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In a similar vein, author Matt Haig also had thirty pieces of encouraging wisdom to share via the Telegraph. My favorites were:

• Being published doesn't make you happy.  It just swaps your old neuroses for new ones.
• Success depends on great words and passionate people.  The words are up to you.  The people you have to pray for, and stand by them once you have them.
• Beauty breeds beauty, truth triggers truth.  The cure for writer's block is therefore to read.

Whimsy on Wednesday (Jillian)

A little literary news reel for you:

• On the Telegraph, British author Hilary Mantel has won the Man Booker Prize for her novel Bring Up the Bodies, a sequel to Wolf Hall, which follows Thomas Cromwell at the court of Henry VIII.  Bring Up the Bodies details the Anne Boleyn scandal and her unhappy end.  Ms. Mantel is one of two authors to have won the Man Booker Prize twice and the only woman to do so.  This is a great testament to the power of fiction written well... and historical fiction at that.  Hers is the only Tudor-esque novel out of the hundreds that exist that I want very badly to read. 
• Ian McEwan, also a Booker Prize winner, has said recently that the novella is the perfect literary form.  He might be right but that's quite a difficult thing to accomplish.
• NPR has a lovely article on the 60th anniversary of E.B. White's Charlotte's Web.
• National Novel Writing Month is coming up in November.  Writer Unboxed has several posts on preparing for the project.  I am considering participating in it this year, if only to maintain my sanity during this time of the Sisyphean synopsis.  I think it would be a good way to churn out a first draft of a novel, intense though it may be. 
• Publishers Marketplace had an article on Ann Patchett interviewing JK Rowling.  One tidbit I found interesting: "I find that discussing an idea out loud is often the way to kill it stone dead.  They all sound rubbish," she said. I find this to be particularly true.  My ideas for stories or little nuances in my novel must be kept inside - let out too soon, even in private dialogue with oneself, and the idea evaporates or turns to dust. 

Thoughts on Ms. Rowling (Jillian)

Today is the day J.K. Rowling's first novel since Harry Potter, The Casual Vacancy, is/will be released to the public.  As a writer about to enter into the publishing world, my little novel clutched hopefully to my chest, I can't help but admire Ms. Rowling's quest to continuing writing in spite of all the mounting pressure.  Will it be as good as Harry Potter? Will she be able to successfully separate herself from the wizarding world?  Can she handle it?  I don't have the answers to those questions, because I'm not her, but I believe she is doing a very brave, intrepid thing, breaking herself away from the creative world that brought her so much success and trying her hand at something new, a totally different kind of story.  I wish her the absolute best.

Allan Massie of the Daily Telegraph has an interesting blogpost this morning on Ms. Rowling, asking: how do you deal with a book by an author who has achieved such a phenomenal success as Harry Potter?

Whimsical Wednesday (Jillian)

There have been quite a few little news tidbits in the writing world-at-large in the last week, and I thought I'd compile them here for a Whimsical Wednesday.  Ready? 

• Today, Stephen King announced that he is penning a sequel to The Shining, his third novel, to be published next year, entitled Doctor Sleep.  It follows Danny Torrance, who was a young boy in The Shining, and whose father succumbed to evil spirits that inhabited a winter hotel.  This was made into a film starring Jack Nicholson, generally thought to be one of the scariest films ever.  I've seen parts.  I was properly freaked out.  I am just amazed at Mr. King's work ethic, this drive to create.  If you're a King fan and want to know more, here is his website: http://www.stephenking.com/library/novel/doctor_sleep.html. 
• Last week, we heard from Mandy Patinkin (read article here) about why he left the violent television show Criminal Minds several years ago.  He says his role as a criminal profiler was "very destructive to my soul and personality," and Criminal Minds was not the show he thought it would be.  He has made a very good point about the sort of destruction that we take for granted on television these days. 
• For history buffs, you may be following the news that the grave of Richard III was found in Leicester, Great Britain, at a site underneath a car park (parking lot) where the Grey Friars church was believed to have stood.  Richard III had a short, tempestuous reign and was defeated at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485.  His body was paraded through the town by the victorious Tudors and buried at the church, which was later lost in obscurity.  The skeleton in question appears to have signs of scoliosis - perhaps resembling the hunchback of Shakespeare's play (though not quite), and an arrowhead through the neck.  DNA testing will commence to see if he is in fact the lost king.  If he is, he may be entitled to a state funeral, five-hundred twenty-seven years after his death.  The Telegraph as all the intrigue. 
• The trailer for The Hobbit was released today.  The Telegraph has the trailer embedded here.  I am excited to see these beloved stories come to life once again, and see Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage and Benedict Cumberbatch among familiar faces... although the latter, also known as Sherlock Holmes (Freeman being Watson), may not be particularly recognizable.

Words Creating Pictures (Jillian)

Once again, the Daily Telegraph has me completely under its spell... because it just takes the time to celebrate art... art that totally takes us by surprise in its ordinary yet magical ways! (follow the lovely link at your leisure!)

Today's subject of intrigue: typewriter art by Keira Rathbone! Literally pictures, portraits and landscapes brilliantly rendered from ink strokes and letters on a typewriter! It creates this brilliant metaphor in my head - of words threading themselves together into a tapestry to create an striking picture, creating layers, hidden messages... ah! Not to mention, I wish I had an old typewriter... not necessarily to create pictures (I'll leave that to Keira's amazing talent), but to connect with words in that special way. Perhaps the next time I venture to a garage sale or an antique shop! Wonderful, wonderful whimsy!

Thank you Daily Telegraph! You are my inspiration!