“I write one page of masterpiece to ninety one pages of shit,” Hemingway confided to F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1934. “I try to put the shit in the wastebasket.”
‘Be vicious, don’t get sentimental about your writing, cut out the crap’ I mutter to myself furiously as the words drop off the page and into cyber nowhereland.
Bye bye lovlies, I tried but in the end I found you substandard. Another time and place, in another form, you could have been mine. We could have had something. But you just couldn’t (or wouldn’t) change for me, so you get the chop.
Lol! Why is it Hemingway everyone wants to write like? You often hear ‘He’s no Hemingway..’ Why Hemingway? The quote though is a good one PLUS it can be applied to life too. Which reminds me – time for a spot of Spring clean. Nah, I’ll wait until er ‘Spring’
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hehe, I don’t know why to be honest – although he’s often on reading lists for writng courses… and a master of the short form too I guess 🙂
I think he has some excellent advice overall, especially the impolite versions. And I agree with you that spring cleaning should be put off until spring arrives – if it ever does! Maybe I can avoid it for a whole year?
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