Some writing advice to make your blood boil

Originally published on 28 June 2023

1. Kurt Vonnegut

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[…] I understand now that all those antique essays and stories with which I was to compare my own work were not magnificent for their datedness or foreignness, but for saying precisely what their authors meant them to say. My teachers wished me to write accurately, always selecting the most effective words, and relating the words to one another unambiguously, rigidly, like parts of a machine. The teachers did not want to turn me into an Englishman after all. They hoped that I would become understandable—and therefore understood. And there went my dream of doing with words what Pablo Picasso did with paint or what any number of jazz idols did with music. If I broke all the rules of punctuation, had words mean whatever I wanted them to mean, and strung them together higgledy-piggledy, I would simply not be understood. So you, too, had better avoid Picasso-style or jazz-style writing, if you have something worth saying and wish to be understood.

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Apart from acerbic and self-deprecating humour, Kurt Vonnegut bequeathed a healthy batch of writing advice which one ought to adhere to. After a night spent under the hum of heavy bombers slicing through the night sky of Dresden, Vonnegut dedicated his life to writing, co-opting his wife as a freelance editor in the initial stages of his career. His bestseller, Slaughterhouse-5, still in large demand 50 years later, was written during his days at the Iowa Writers Workshop, where he gave students a long list of tips and shticks on writing, only to finish off with:

You can't teach people to write well. Writing well is something God lets you do or declines to let you do.

2. David Foster Wallace

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‍I’ve gotten convinced that there’s something kind of timelessly vital and sacred about good writing. This thing doesn’t have that much to do with talent, even glittering talent... Talent’s just an instrument. It’s like having a pen that works instead of one that doesn’t. I’m not saying I’m able to work consistently out of the premise, but it seems like the big distinction between good art and so-so art lies somewhere in the art’s heart’s purpose, the agenda of the consciousness behind the text. It’s got something to do with love. With having the discipline to talk out of the part of yourself that can love instead of the part that just wants to be loved.

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The spearhead of  New Sincerity that would pierce Postmodernism. 90s literature would be incomplete if it wasn’t for DFW’s piercing input on matters of media saturation, addiction, choice, creativity in the digital age, and corporate puppeteering. His scope is large and yet immaculately congruent, allowing you to jump from one book to the next and still think you are reading one whole piece. 

3.  William T. Vollmann

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‍My work habits have never been structured. It’s just something I do as much as I can. For the first few books, it was pure enjoyment. Now, the enjoyment is not there quite as much because my hands hurt all the time when I type. 

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Lit media really tried to pit Vollmann against Wallace in terms of output and scope, as if the two ever cared about such a petty competition. But some of it crept onto Wallace, who even openly confessed that he got something of an inferiority complex when his production got statistically stacked against Vollmann’s. Vollmann’s production is enough to fortify or thermally isolate your own house, there’s no question about it. But I doubt the reader of this article cares much about it heaps of inked people. Vollmann’s sprawling books encapsulate not simply events falling within the interests of the journalist or philosopher. Each of his work divulges topics on violence, power, moral relativity in which real-life and imaginary character are held in their tight grip.

4. Rick Harsch

I don't like advice; I don't like giving advice; I don't like advice about writing and so that whole idea goes against my writing persona or whatever. My advice is to be free, and I could say more about that but that's what it amounts to be completely free.

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Another Iowa Writers Workshop alumnus, who is responsible for a 600-page tapestry of American history and intrigue, The Manifold Destiny of Eddie Vegas, and the birth of Corona/Samizdat - Rick Harsch. His current book-publishing accomplishments are starting to catch up with his literary ones, as titles under the press wing, America and Cult of the Cactus Boots and Bedraggling Grandma with Russian Snow, have snowballed from minute start-ups to internationally-recognised novels. All of this and much more we attribute to his unapologetic and brazen demeanour which makes the press a haven for free literature. 

5. Joseph Heller

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I don’t understand the process of imagination—though I know that I am very much at its mercy. I feel that these ideas are floating around in the air and they pick me to settle upon. The ideas come to me; I don’t produce them at will. They come to me in the course of a sort of controlled daydream, a directed reverie.

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For anyone who still hasn’t read Catch-22, there’s the show to introduce you to Heller’s dizzying, often-diabolic worlds of war. Much like with Vonnegut, we are as close to the absurd as humanly possible, and there’s great pleasure to derive from that. Authors of such calibre dare to shatter to particles the optimism left for the human race in the midst of our personal reverie; and right when we are on our knees, frantically turning in search of a new light, they show that it isn’t so much about wether hope is whole or not, but that its pieces impart just as much light as before. With Heller, life never gets better on its own, but doesn’t get any much worse if your do something about it. 

6. Joao Reis‍

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‍I think the most important advice, and the one I most often give when asked about it, is to read a lot. For me, reading must be natural since childhood if you want to be a good writer. Of course, you can start later, but it's not the same. This advice can be a bit generic, but I truly believe that reading a lot different authors from different languages and from different periods is even more important than experimenting a lot. Of course, you should experiment to find your own voice, and keep in mind that you should write in your personal voice and to please yourself and only one more reader (imaginary or not). So, don't try to please everyone. Read a lot, experiment, don't stick only to famous books or trends.

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Being responsible for one of Corona/Samizdat’s greatest publishing achievements, Bedraggling Grandma with Russian Snow, Joao is the type of writer who titillates readers with witty characters and clever concepts. His keen interest in Philosophy affords him the flexibility to pursue a variety of niche subjects, which, without Joao’s unique introspections, would evade the common person. Right now, he is busy writing in Portuguese, English, and translating the works of his countrymen for English audiences. 

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