Silence

Well hey there, Internet. I’ve been rather silent here lately. Nothing much interesting going on in my life. In my friends’ lives, however…

Just dropping by today to post this link to an interview with editor and writer Gordon Lish. Yes, that Gordon Lish. Here’s an excerpt on revising:

GL: With a word one can hold back the world. You know? A common comma, for pity’s sake. To shift, where in the mouth the sound is uttered can make all the difference, one likes to think. Probably irrationally … The fiddling, the ferocity of its possession of one, is just what writing is. The telling and the told aren’t separable, of course …

And I love this exchange about writing the beginning of a story, because I have such trouble with that at times:

GL: The opening is to get the thing opened, to overcome the inertia of silence, indifference. Whatever means convince you you have achieved this effect ordain what follows.

BCE: The silence that precedes the reader beginning to read?

GL: The silence that precedes the writer beginning to write.

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