“You write and I’ll paint”, he said, leaning against the sink in our studio. Ha! I thought, were it only that simple. Maybe it’s easier for painters, even the lowliest scratch of colour on a canvas is evidence of being ‘at work’.
What, for the writer? We need to draw out more than a single line in order to be considered at work, or producing anything of even marginal value. We spend much of our time absorbing, I suppose, reading and thinking – and neither of those actions is ever considered ‘producing’.
Ah! But there’s the rub. In order to produce our own words, we must absorb as many written by others as possible. Can we really be so ignorant to believe (as many writers do) that ingesting the labours of our brethren of the craft will colour our personal output to such a degree as to be a hindrance?
Maybe it is true in some part and, certainly, I find I have several well-worn staples of phrase that I’ll reel out if stuck for a snappy finisher or a thrust of point.
Inspiration seeps, by intellectual osmosis, through us all and, though we wish to be afforded comparison to our literary idols, there is nothing so wanting as our own ego. To shine in a glimmering pool of originality, my, could there be anything so wondrous?
So, tell me, dear ones, whom do you admire? And what platitudes thrown at their gilded feet make you shiver with delight?
For your delectation, I give you…
“She was unstoppably extravagant: even her jokes were expensive”
- Liza Campbell on Isabella Blow
“… Over time she has become like an extravagant, sexy, luscious, marvellous flower… Life is a stage for Daphne. She can steal the show from every other girl in the room, but they don’t mind, because she’s so sweet that everybody has to love her”.
- Valentino on Daphne Guinness
“… the embodiment of the archetypal warrior knight – chivalrous, broad of shoulder and barrel chested… in both abstraction and the defined, his aesthetic sensibilities are his religion, for he knows no other God”.
- A lady, speaking of her husband
“She is her own inamorata, inhabiting the thrumming place between this life and the next. Though she was certainly born just as any one of us, she has become every woman - and none of them – a changeling spirit of alien beauty and all of man’s desire”.
- A gentleman, speaking of his wife
“She was heavy, like wet roses”
- Caitlin Moran on Elizabeth Taylor
“Of all beasts, the horse knows us best. Watch a horse sometime, ideally when the light is fading. Should his eyes meet yours as the heat of the day cools upon his back, you will understand. Throughout history he has borne us – our struggles are the same”.
- Anon
“Yes, and nineteen pounds of it is cock”
- Ava Gardner to a reporter who suggested her lover, Frank Sinatra, was “… a one-hundred and nineteen pound has-been”
What, for the writer? We need to draw out more than a single line in order to be considered at work, or producing anything of even marginal value. We spend much of our time absorbing, I suppose, reading and thinking – and neither of those actions is ever considered ‘producing’.
Ah! But there’s the rub. In order to produce our own words, we must absorb as many written by others as possible. Can we really be so ignorant to believe (as many writers do) that ingesting the labours of our brethren of the craft will colour our personal output to such a degree as to be a hindrance?
Maybe it is true in some part and, certainly, I find I have several well-worn staples of phrase that I’ll reel out if stuck for a snappy finisher or a thrust of point.
Inspiration seeps, by intellectual osmosis, through us all and, though we wish to be afforded comparison to our literary idols, there is nothing so wanting as our own ego. To shine in a glimmering pool of originality, my, could there be anything so wondrous?
So, tell me, dear ones, whom do you admire? And what platitudes thrown at their gilded feet make you shiver with delight?
For your delectation, I give you…
“She was unstoppably extravagant: even her jokes were expensive”
- Liza Campbell on Isabella Blow
“… Over time she has become like an extravagant, sexy, luscious, marvellous flower… Life is a stage for Daphne. She can steal the show from every other girl in the room, but they don’t mind, because she’s so sweet that everybody has to love her”.
- Valentino on Daphne Guinness
“… the embodiment of the archetypal warrior knight – chivalrous, broad of shoulder and barrel chested… in both abstraction and the defined, his aesthetic sensibilities are his religion, for he knows no other God”.
- A lady, speaking of her husband
“She is her own inamorata, inhabiting the thrumming place between this life and the next. Though she was certainly born just as any one of us, she has become every woman - and none of them – a changeling spirit of alien beauty and all of man’s desire”.
- A gentleman, speaking of his wife
“She was heavy, like wet roses”
- Caitlin Moran on Elizabeth Taylor
“Of all beasts, the horse knows us best. Watch a horse sometime, ideally when the light is fading. Should his eyes meet yours as the heat of the day cools upon his back, you will understand. Throughout history he has borne us – our struggles are the same”.
- Anon
“Yes, and nineteen pounds of it is cock”
- Ava Gardner to a reporter who suggested her lover, Frank Sinatra, was “… a one-hundred and nineteen pound has-been”