When I get real bored, I like to drive downtown and get a great parking spot, then sit in my car and count how many people ask me if I'm leaving. ~-Steven Wright
I love words. I adore the English language, no matter how funky it is. But apparently there are some folks out there who love it far more than I.
I stumbled across this article today. It's about researchers looking in to the English language. They've discovered that nouns and verbs are phonetically different.
Does anyone but me wonder how many millions of dollars they spent on this? And more importantly, why?? We need a cure for cancer, people. Or hurricane safe housing. Or fewer hungry children.
Here's a little taste of what they did:
The researchers took the sounds of more than 3,000 words in English and subdivided each by its phonetic features — in other words, what a person does with his mouth, lungs and vocal cords to produce the sounds of each word.
Really?
*shakes head*
Who would ever even thought of doing this? Someone was seriously bored.
On to another subject, because I can't even think of a good segue between the two.
I was perusing my copy of RWR and stopped to read the interview with Nora Roberts. I think I love her (more than I did). Did you see it? Check out some of these quotes from the article:
On writers claiming that the muse has left them (aka Writers Block):
The muse is fickle and pretty much a wimp...Sister Mary Responsibility would kick the muse's butt, every time."
If you need to believe in the muse... fine and dandy... But don't tell me you can't work today because the muse has left you. Go track down that fickle slut, drag her back, chain her to your keyboard, and get to work.
Wouldn't you love to have a personal writing trainer full of wisdom like this to kick you in the butt when you can't seem to write?
She also says this when asked if she has days where the words just won't come:
I have plenty of days when the words don't want to come. I push until they do. That's my process. It's not the right way, it's my way. Just like refusing to believe in writers' block is my way.
Is it any wonder the woman is able to release so many books in a year? And, for the most part, they are good books (of course, some better than others, but all better than most).
*sigh*
My hero.
How about you? What do you do when the muse leaves? When you have writers block? How do you react?
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2 comments:
Who would ever even thought of doing this? Someone was seriously bored.
Wow. That sounds marginally more exciting than watching paint dry. And they probably spent a fortune doing the study. *shaking head*
Hi Maria,
I never have writers back, unless you mean that time I stopped writing for two years. It was after my first book, which I now call the practice one, and I got initiated into the world of critiques, and proofreading and submitting etc.
The learning curve was tremendous and daunting and I thought it-that whole process after getting the idea down--was way more trouble than it was worth. So, I lost all desire to write. But, the muse-that thing I call "I've been writing for five hours and it seems like five minutes" came back.
Started writing short stories again and the stories changed into a serial and I was back writing everyday.
Since 2001, I do something writing related 4 hours everyday.(Of course, I count reading and answering blog questions.:-))
When the story isn't flowing and I can't get that "muse", it can take me 4 hours to write 4 pages-4 bad pages, but, so far, I'm always interested in trying.
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