The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Reads tagged with “writing”

David Foster Wallace on Writing, Self-Improvement, and How We Become Who We Are
David Foster Wallace on Writing, Self-Improvement, and How We Become Who We Are

“Good writing isn’t a science. It’s an art, and the horizon is infinite. You can always get better.”

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The Best-Kept Secret of Clichés: How to Upgrade Our Uses and Abolish Our Abuses of Language
The Best-Kept Secret of Clichés: How to Upgrade Our Uses and Abolish Our Abuses of Language

A manifesto against mindless language, or how to get off autopilot in the art of communication.

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The Relationship Between Creativity and Mental Illness
The Relationship Between Creativity and Mental Illness

The science behind the “tortured genius” myth and what it reveals about how the creative mind actually works.

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Leonard Cohen on Creativity, Work Ethic, and Why You Should Never Quit Before You Know What It Is You’re Quitting
Leonard Cohen on Creativity, Work Ethic, and Why You Should Never Quit Before You Know What It Is You’re Quitting

“The cutting of the gem has to be finished before you can see whether it shines.”

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How to Write Fat Books: Walter Benjamin’s Principles of the Weighty Tome
How to Write Fat Books: Walter Benjamin’s Principles of the Weighty Tome

A seven-point blueprint to the dark arts of filling pages.

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Nietzsche’s 10 Rules for Writers, Penned in a Letter to His Lover and Muse
Nietzsche’s 10 Rules for Writers, Penned in a Letter to His Lover and Muse

“Style ought to prove that one believes in an idea; not only that one thinks it but also feels it.”

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Jeanette Winterson on Time, Language, Reading, and How Art Creates a Sanctified Space for the Human Spirit
Jeanette Winterson on Time, Language, Reading, and How Art Creates a Sanctified Space for the Human Spirit

“Art can make a difference because it pulls people up short. It says, don’t accept things for their face value; you don’t have to go along with any of this; you can think for yourself.”

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Ray Bradbury on Failure, Why We Hate Work, and the Importance of Love in Creative Endeavors
Ray Bradbury on Failure, Why We Hate Work, and the Importance of Love in Creative Endeavors

How working for the wrong motives poisons our creativity and warps our ideas of success and failure.

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Chinua Achebe on the Meaning of Life and the Writer’s Responsibility in the World
Chinua Achebe on the Meaning of Life and the Writer’s Responsibility in the World

The difference between blind optimism and the urge to improve the world’s imperfection.

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Joyce Carol Oates on What Hemingway’s Early Stories Can Teach Us About Writing and the Defining Quality of Great Art
Joyce Carol Oates on What Hemingway’s Early Stories Can Teach Us About Writing and the Defining Quality of Great Art

On the elusive gift of blending austerity of craft with elasticity of allure.

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