E M M A . 🤍 Ok granted I’ve only seen the trailer for the movie so far, but the comedy! The colours! The costumes! I simply had to admire the general splendour! And so I made some art. This was very much inspired by Autumn De Wilde’s photos in @vogue which I loved completely. If you haven’t seen them yet, go run and do so. 🌸
On Keeping a Notebook by Joan Didion - A beautiful meditation on keeping notes that explores the heart of the writing process
Why I Write by Joan Didion - Exploring the art of writing, and what it means to the author
Happy Endings by Margret Atwood - John and Mary meet. What happens next?
Everything you Need to Know About Writing Successfully - in Ten Minutes by Stephen King - Short, sharp advice on everything from talent and self-criticism to having fun and entertaining your audience
Write Till You Drop by Annie Dillard - “Do you think I could be a writer?” “I don’t know… . Do you like sentences?”
The Nature of the Fun by David Foster Wallace - “A book-in-progress is a kind of hideously damaged infant that follows the writer around wanting love, wanting the very thing its hideousness guarantees it’ll get: the writer’s complete attention
That Crafty Feeling by Zadie Smith - “What I have to say about craft extends no further than my own experience, which is what it is - 12 years and three novels.
Fail Better by Zadie Smith - Literature’s legacy of honourable failure
On Being a Woman Writer Lidia Yuknavitch - A very smart man tells me the thing I have written is too much about my self. Too much “I.” Could I please write something else? Differently?
Why I Write by George Orwell - On egoism, a love of beauty, the quest for truth and the desire to change the world – Orwell’s ‘four great motive for writing’.
The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination by J.K. Rowling - A commencement address
Where Do You Get Your Ideas? by Neil Gaiman - A meditation on inspiration
What is Genre? by Neil Gaiman - I think it’s probably a set of assumptions, and it’s a loose contract between a creator and an audience…
Despite Tough Guys, Life Is Not the Only School for Real Novelists by Kurt Vonnegut - A beautifully argued defence of the role of teaching in developing writers
Write Like a Motherfucker by Cheryl Strayed - Raw, emotional adivce on the role of humility and surrender in the often tortured world of the writer
Thoughts on Writing by Elizabeth Gilbert - On disicpline, hard work, rejection and why it’s never too late to start
How Long Does it Take to Write a Book? by Chuck Klosterman - Does staring at a blank computer screen for two hours count as creativity?