English - Writer | July 6, 1952 -
Writing comes from that territory of being invalidated. But I had a sense of purpose, too. I wanted to stop apologising for my health, and I thought I might do some good.
Hilary Mantel
GoodHealthPurposeWritingThought
When I was thin, I had no notion of what being fat is like. When I worked in a department store, I had sold clothes to women of most sizes, so I should have known; but perhaps you have to experience the state from the inside, to understand what fat is like.
WomenExperienceFatClothesYou
When you have committed enough words to paper, you feel you have a spine stiff enough to stand up in the wind. But when you stop writing, you find that's all you are - a spine, a row of rattling vertebrae, dried out like an old quill pen.
WordsWindWritingStand UpStand
'Wolf Hall' attempts to duplicate not the historian's chronology but the way memory works: in leaps, loops, flashes.
MemoryWolfWayDuplicateWorks
I am usually protective of my work, not showing it to anyone until it has been redrafted and polished.
WorkI AmBeenPolishedAmUntil
'Show up at the desk' is one of the first rules of writing, but for 'Wolf Hall' I was about 30 years late.
WritingWolfLateRulesDeskFirst
When narratives fracture, when words fail, I take consolation from the part of my life that always works: the stationery order. The mail-order stationery people supply every need from royal blue Quink to a dazzling variety of portable hard drives.
LifeWordsBluePeopleMy LifeNeed
Sometimes I fantasize that all my furniture has been destroyed in a cataclysm, and I have to start again with only the stationery catalogue. My entire house would become an office, which would be an overt recognition of the existing state of affairs.
StartRecognitionFurnitureHouse
Writers displace their anxiety on to the tools of the trade. It's better to say that you haven't got the right pencil than to say you can't write, or to blame your computer for losing your chapter than face up to your feeling that it's better lost.
LosingBlameFaceBetterAnxiety
For myself, the only way I know how to make a book is to construct it like a collage: a bit of dialogue here, a scrap of narrative, an isolated description of a common object, an elaborate running metaphor which threads between the sequences and holds different narrative lines together.
MyselfTogetherBookKnowWayHere
Write a book you'd like to read. If you wouldn't read it, why would anybody else? Don't write for a perceived audience or market. It may well have vanished by the time your book's ready.
TimeBookYouReadyWhyWrite
If you have a good story idea, don't assume it must form a prose narrative. It may work better as a play, a screenplay or a poem. Be flexible.
WorkGoodStoryBetterYouPlay
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