Today morning, I recalled these amazing lines from Anne Lamott's "Bird by Bird" and I think, they encapsulate just the perfect POV to look at writing, perfectionism, and all the things that inhibit a free flow of writing. Read it below:
“When we have a wound in our body, the nearby muscles cramp around it to protect it from any more violation and from infection, and that I would need to use these muscles if I wanted them to relax again.
I think that something similar happens with our psyche muscles. They cramp around our wounds – the pain from our childhood, the losses and disappointments of adulthood, the humiliations suffered in both – to keep us from getting hurt in the same place again, to keep foreign substances out. So these wounds never have a chance to heal.
Perfectionism is one way our muscles cramp. In some cases, we don’t even know that the wounds and cramping are there, but both limit us. They keep us moving and writing in tight, worried ways. They keep us standing back or backing away from life, keep us from experiencing life in naked and immediate way.” - Anne Lamott
A work of fiction, in writing or otherwise,
is a creative concoction of characters, settings and scenarios which are all,
but only illusory formations carved by the function of human mind called as ‘imagination’.
Yet for most humans, storytelling forms the make-up of majority of our life’s time.
Stories!
These fabricated vistas, slapped with wodges
of tremors, trepidations and sensations; trammeling with shams of ideas and waves
of emotion lapping through…Stories are those quirks of tricks and lies, in the
backdrop of which, lurks a still quietude of the emotional center that hums and
rustles in the heartbeats of its truest readers and listeners.
Discover below, a collection dazzling with
forty insightful quotations from some of the greatest writers-storytellers, on
the topic of ‘fiction’. To read all of these in one go (with background music!)
begin straight from the following video, or skip through this to read them one
by one. Yowzers!
#1 Fiction is the truth inside the lie. – Stephen King
#2Life is always going to be stranger than fiction, because fiction
has to be convincing, and life doesn't. – Neil Gaiman
#3Writing fiction is the act of weaving a series of lies to arrive at
a greater truth. – Khaled Hosseini
#4When I die, I'm leaving my body to science fiction. – Steven Wright
#5Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
#6What I’m looking for is nothing but a touch of verisimilitude, like
the handful of spices you chuck into a good spaghetti sauce to really finish
her off. That sense of reality is important in any work of fiction, but I think
it is particularly important in a story dealing with the abnormal or
paranormal. – Stephen King
#7Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth. – Albert Camus
#8The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make
sense. - Tom Clancy
#9 This moment will just be another story someday. – Stephen Chbosky
#10 After nourishment, shelter and
companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world. – Philip
Pullman
#11 The universe is made of
stories, not of atoms. - Muriel Rukeyser
#12 The world of reality has its
limits; the world of imagination is boundless. – Jean Jacques Rousseau
#13 Truth is so hard to tell, it
sometimes needs fiction to make it plausible. - Francis Bacon
#14 Life is infinitely stranger
than anything which the mind of man could invent. We would not dare to conceive
the things which are really mere commonplaces of existence. If we could fly out
of that window hand in hand, hover over this great city, gently remove the
roofs, and and peep in at the queer things which are going on, the strange
coincidences, the plannings, the cross-purposes, the wonderful chains of
events, working through generations, and leading to the most outre results, it
would make all fiction with its conventionalities and foreseen conclusions most
stale and unprofitable. ― Arthur Conan Doyle
#15 There is no doubt fiction
makes a better job of the truth. ― Doris May Lessing
#16 Stories are the wildest things
of all, the monster rumbled. Stories chase and bite and hunt.” ― Patrick Ness
#17 Fiction is art and art is the
triumph over chaos… to celebrate a world that lies spread out around us like a
bewildering and stupendous dream. ― John Cheever
#18 Some of these things are true
and some of them lies. But they are all good stories. ― Hilary Mantel
#19 That's what fiction is for.
It's for getting at the truth when the truth isn't sufficient for the truth. ―
Tim O'Brien
#20 Happiness is an allegory,
unhappiness a story. – Haruki Murakami
#21 Fiction is the truth, fool! –
John Waters
#22 A good story is always more
dazzling than a broken piece of truth. ― Diane Setterfield
#23 Good fiction’s job is to
comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable. ― David Foster Wallace
#24 Fiction is like a spider's
web, attached ever so lightly perhaps, but still attached to life at all four
corners. ― Virginia Woolf
#25 Fiction was invented the day
Jonah arrived home and told his wife that he was three days late because he had
been swallowed by a whale. ― Gabriel García Márquez
#26 If you will practice being
fictional for a while, you will understand that fictional characters are
sometimes more real than people with bodies and heartbeats. ― Richard Bach
#27 The point of stories is not
that they are objectively true, but that the soul of the story is truer than
reality. Those who mock fiction do so because they fear the truth. ― Cassandra
Clare
#28 Fiction can show you a
different world. It can take you somewhere you've never been. Once you've
visited other worlds, like those who ate fairy fruit, you can never be entirely
content with the world that you grew up in. Discontent is a good thing:
discontented people can modify and improve their worlds, leave them better,
leave them different. – Neil Gaiman
#29 Escapist fiction is just that:
fiction that opens a door, shows the sunlight outside, gives you a place to go
where you are in control, are with people you want to be with(and books are
real places, make no mistake about that); and more importantly, during your
escape, books can also give you knowledge about the world and your predicament,
give you weapons, give you armour: real things you can take back into your
prison. Skills and knowledge and tools you can use to escape for real. – Neil
Gaiman
#30 I know there are people who
don't read fiction at all, and I find it hard to understand how they can bear
to be inside the same head all the time. ― Diane Setterfield
#31 Fiction should be a place of
lollipops and escape. Real life is depressing enough--I, for one, don't want to
read about make believe misery, too. ― Nicole Christie
#32 Imagination is more important
than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we know and understand, while
imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and
understand. ― Michael Scott
#33 As soon as we renounce fiction
and illusion, we lose reality itself; the moment we subtract fictions from
reality, reality itself loses its discursive-logical consistency. ― Slavoj
Žižek
#34 It's under the mask of fiction
that you can tell the truth. - Gao Xingjian
#35 Imagination and fiction make up
more than three quarters of our real life. - Simone Weil
#36 Do what you will, this world's
a fiction and is made up of contradiction. - William Blake
#37 It's no wonder that truth is
stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense. Mark Twain
#38 Fiction gives us a second
chance that life denies us. – Paul Theroux
#39 Beyond the fiction of the
reality, there is the reality of the fiction. ― Slavoj Žižek
#40 Reality exists in the human
mind and nowhere else. – George Orwell
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger is one of those books that one may read over and over again, and never get bored. It clangs and jingles with the outpourings of sentiments, sentiments which erupt from the pellmell of the juvenile years in the life of a boy named Holden Caufield.
Written in a 1st person narrative, the book gushes with the tohubohu of his adolescence and boyhood. Irked by who he calls as “phonies”, aka his fellow schoolmates, Holden decides to leave his school Pencey Prep. Stepping into the rubbly arena of the outer world, Holden seems to feel alienated, disoriented and miffy at its absurdity. The text that follows in the book elaborates upon these emotions in a tangle of brilliantly-crafted interior monologue that turns out to be utterly savoury to the reading sense.
The book features an epistolary format, which means that it is written in the form of letters addressed to the reader and divided into chapters. The Catcher in the Rye is a popular title among the community of writers though the first time I came across it was, while I was reading Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, coincidentally when I too was amidst my college life. Talking about her experience of reading this book, Anne Lamott writes,
“When I read 'Catcher in the Rye' for the first time I knew what it was like to have someone speak for me, to close a book with a sense of both triumph and relief, one lonely isolated social animal finally making contact.” – Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird
Even more so, the book enjoys the spotlight in Gates Notes too, as Bill Gates’ Favourite Reads of 2013.
“I’ve read The Catcher in the Rye a bunch of times—it’s one of my favorite books ever.” – Bill Gates
Apart from Holden, his dorm-mates Stradlater and Ackley represent interesting characters, and so do the characters representing his school alumni Ossenburger, his history teacher Mr. Spencer, his English teacher Mr. Antolini and more. Absolutely in love with the book, I have read The Catcher in the Rye dozens of times, and I look forward to reading it multiple times further and more. Without a speck of doubt, the book is my all-time favourite recommendation for all avid readers. And if you’re a writer, just read it my friend, just read it! Moving
ahead, here are some relatable and soul-stirring quotes from the book presented
in a short video.
Inspired by his dreams, Remy, a rat, finds himself separated from his family-kingdom; isolated and lost in a river tunnel, only to discover that his destiny had brought him to his dream restaurant ‘The Gusteau’s’. Flabbergasted and excited, Remy wanders along to witness the wondrous processes going on in the world’s finest gourmet kitchen. Remy desires to cook, but the only problem, he is not a human. Call it a brush of good fortune, Remy comes across a naïve boy named Linguini. Linguni’s only problem, he doesn’t know how to cook. And so, Remy and Linguini partner along, Remy acting as his shadow chef.
The classic Disney-Pixar hit does not only feature an immersive animated production and neat characters, but also a storytelling that is as inspiring as entertaining.
Dreams come true! Orders please!!
In this video, I share 27 of my favourite, inspirational quotes from the movie. Go ahead, watch and enjoy!
Thank you, Good
day & Stay tuned for more exciting quote collections!
Taste buds
seem to swoon with delight the moment one mentions the topic of “chocolates”.
So, when
Mr. Willy Wonka, the greatest chocolate manufacturer decided to reopen his
chocolate factory, the children worldwide splashed into pools of excitement.
And so did their parents, their grandparents.
Confectionary
stores worldwide were stocked and restocked, and re-re-stocked, with gigantic
heaps of Willy Wonka Chocolate Bars.
On the flip
side, the toothpaste factories let go of their workers because, apparently, the
market demand of toothpaste escalated in direct proportion to the sale of Willy
Wonka Chocolates. The job demanded a skill too mechanical and too much to be
worked out by the mere labour of human employees.
One of
these toothpaste factory workers turned out to be Mr. Bucket, the father of a
charming boy Charlie Bucket.
Though
poverty-struck, the Buckets family depict family warmth, yet, floats like a
snowflake of wintry gloom. Their fortune, however, turns around, when Charlie
discovers that he has found one of the five Golden Tickets, which, Mr. Willy Wonka
had secretly slipped inside five of the chocolate bars shipped out of his
factory. Five lucky children who would find the five golden tickets, would
receive a surprise tour inside the Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory.
Apart from
Charlie, the four lucky winners turn out to be Veruca, Augustus, Violet and
Mike.
The four
characters – Veruca, Augustus, Violet and Mike, are depicted to be spoiled children.
While Veruca is a daddy-pampered girl who wants what she wants; Augustus can’t
stop getting distracted by his chocolate gobblings; Violet is too proud of her
gum-chewing world record and Mike is too hot-headed to even consider listening
to what Mr. Wonka is saying.
The five
kiddos reach outside the factory gates alongwith one member of their families each.
On the other side of the giant gate stands the Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory,
looking like an ancient chalkstone castle.
The
remaining slice of the movie takes the audience on a twisty journey of
chocolatey lush and panorama of sweet ditties, beyond imagination.
Chocolate
river, candy boat, eatable grass, giant white-red candies, rainbow drops, marshmallow
pillows, tiny eatable chocolate birds, everlasting gum, tv-producing chocolates,
hot ice cubes and cows giving chocolate-milk are some of the bizarre wonders Mr.
Wonka showcases to the winners.
But more
than anything else, what turns out to be the most bizarre, is Mr. Wonka’s
personality. As it turns out, he is an adult carrying the heart of a boy who
was asked to stay away from all things chocolate and candy. The reason? His
father was a dentist.
Out of the
five winners, Charlie remains the only one who survives till the end of the
tour, and inspires Mr. Wonka to reunite with his dentist father.
As the name
and the picturesque details suggest, the movie is a sweet treat to watch. A dessert-ful
delight to indulge in.
The best
part, this chocolate factory won’t give you cavities!
Moving
forward, here are thirty chocolatey quotes from the movie. Watch and enjoy!
Judy Hopps, a bunny cop, leaves her hometown and boards a train to the adventurous big city Zootopia, to fulfill her life’s dream. Signed as a mere traffic meter inspector, she loses her heart, until one day when she comes across a fox named Nick Wilde, who is doing the business of selling fake popsicle icecreams. As the bunny and the fox join hands to catch a dangerous gang called ‘Night Howlers’, their enemity gradually turns into a bittersweet friendship. And together, they pave the way forward to restore the harmony of the big city and to reunite all animals from the separation of prey and predators!
A world of dreams; a courageous cop; a fable of friendship & ripples of laughter; this Disney-animated comedy is a heartwarming treat that is endearing, engaging and entertaining for all ages. Check out this list containing 25 interesting quotes extracted from the movie…Enjoy!
And do click the subscribe button for more interesting videos! Good day, Neha🙂
REMINDER
🔴 EMOTIONAL TRIGGERS = CLUES TO YOUR DESTINY'S CIRCLES 🔴
🔴🔴🔴
"Until & unless there is even one thing,
which causes me to feel triggered,
then, clearly, the lesson is that,
some work is yet to be completed.
When I realize this,
I must keep going with the work.
For, the goal, is only
the fresh golden sunlight
emanating from the spacey sky
of my heart's shining awareness.
Nothing lesser than that can ever quench
the thirst of my soul-seeking peregrinations.
Endless it might be, but deep within, I know,
that the journey is worth it!!!"
🔴🔴🔴
VIDEO SHORT DETAILS
Graphic & Writing: Neha's Notebook
Background Music: Mohanakalyani Thillana · Jayanthi Kumaresh [Shared by Youtube]
LINKS
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YouTube Quotes/Reminders Playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5...
Thank you for watching!
Neha's Notebook
In this video, I present seven short poems featuring words which I have written with much depth of attention, fun and curiosity. In different points in time, of course. In addition to stirring your soul, these poems can act as some excellent prompts for your own self-reflection or daily writing practice. Plus, they are super fun and enjoyable to read. Which one turns out to be your favorite; you can share with me in the comments box below!
#1A drop in the ocean is lonely and
will ever be.
Water in the drop is not, and will never be.
#2Bodies everywhere
are mirrors
of certain parts
of my infinite mind
revealing to me
the indicators
of my own darknesses,
sometimes, my beloved,
and sometimes, a creature unloved.
#3When living takes much of your life,
when life appears to die a little,
let life come to living,
and let living die a little.
#4The worst thing about the best of
things is that they do not remain the best forever. The best thing about the
worst of things is that they do not remain the worst forever.
#5Discovering the positive in a
negative appearance can turn out to be a negative thing sometimes. Discovering
the negative in a positive appearance can turn out to be a positive thing
sometimes. Knowing the positivity in a positive is only possible when you know
the negativity in a negative. Knowing the negative in a negative is possible
only when you know the negative in a positive and positive in a negative.
#6If you turn right, don’t look what’s
left
If you don’t turn right, what’s left will take
you to what’s right.
Even after turning right, if you are left with
what doesn’t seem right,
Be alright, what’s left is left only because it
is right for you.
What’s right will come right away if you
rightly look at what’s left.
