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3529a42
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"Flannery O'Connor, in a note to the editor of "Wise Blood" that pertained to changes he wanted to make, wrote "Perhaps I am prematurely arrogant . . ."
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southern-writers
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Flannery O'Connor |
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35ff537
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Humans need each other for equilibrium and support. But writers must pull aside to take a quiet walk alone, not just for the sake of serenity but to hear the Voice inside. That is how the storyteller connects with with others--listen, write, share.
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outer-banks
southern-fiction
southern-writers
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Patricia Hickman |
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c10477b
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Because of sorrow, my awareness of life's pulse is strongly detectable. It is syncopation while I journey, a lap of ocean in the eyes of every person I meet. This awareness informs the flesh of my stories. Grief has been an odd companion, at first a terror, but now I am all the better having accepted it for its intrinsic worth.
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outer-banks
southern-fiction
southern-writers
|
Patricia Hickman |
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b6041a2
|
Facing the sagging middle when writing a novel, while inevitable, may be overcome by pre-planning. I divide my collection of proposed scenes into three acts, each scene inciting tension that builds toward the final crisis in Act Three. If by Act Two the emotional river isn't spilling over the banks, I reassess the plot so that once the writing is flowing I don't slide into a dry creek. The central character should be struggling to navigate life well into the end of Act One, even if her fiercest antagonist is only from within.
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outer-banks
southern-fiction
southern-writers
|
Patricia Hickman |
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98f1810
|
The woods are full of regional writers, and it is the great horror of every serious Southern writer that he will become one of them.
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southern-literature
writers
southern-fiction
southern-writers
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Flannery O'Connor |
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a7881a7
|
I believe that the truth of any subject only comes when all sides of the story are put together.
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racism
southern-writers
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Alice Walker |
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77ba0e0
|
While writing the first draft is an exercise in shutting down all of the things we think we know so that the story features come tumbling out, the revision is the end of the joy ride. We pull on the gloves and sort of poke around inside the body. Is that a tumor? Will that limb need amputation? I nearly second-guessed myself into heart failure while learning to self-edit.
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outer-banks
southern-fiction
southern-writers
|
Patricia Hickman |
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60dc8e1
|
The central character is an incomplete package of yearning that takes the length of the novel to complete. Completion, though, is not to be confused with perfection.
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outer-banks
southern-fiction
southern-writers
|
Patricia Hickman |
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030bd91
|
I started out hoping to remind people at some point in the novel that we should be loving and kind. But then the theme usurped my life, spilling over into my novels until love was no longer a small voice, but now my purpose as a writer.
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outer-banks
southern-fiction
southern-writers
|
Patricia Hickman |