“Before you begin to write a sentence, imagine the scene you want to paint with your words. Imagine that you are the character and feel what the character feels. Smell what the character smells, and hear with that character’s ears. For an instant, before you begin to write, see and feel what you want the reader to see and feel.”
—Othello Bach
Why you shouldn't fall in love with writers.
Writers are shrewd beings with perpetually half-empty cups. They would always ponder and write about pondering. It is their biological abnormality, to feel so damn much out of the simplest of things. They would eradicate your very notions in life. Tie a string of words at the base of your tongue. Words so disconcerting and baffling. You would choke on each pull, and find yourself suffocating. They would use their two fingers to turn you like pages, skim you over until they have edited who you once were. They would crumple the edges of your name like paper, until you feel yourself so used and disposed, you would literally find yourself in the characters of their books. They would make you feel like a speck in a scope, eyeing every miniscule detail of your actions. From the nervous habit of biting pen covers, to the almost obnoxious laugh you can’t control. From your favorite authors, to why you can’t seem to sleep at night. They would find loopholes to make you relatable, but then they would outcast you by being their muse. You would literally feel their palms on your lungs, as you breathe. Like a book, warmth by their moist hands. You are read over and over again. Finding the beauty amidst your madness. Looking at the implicit details that makes you vulnerable. They would mend you, without you ever thinking you are broken. They would get sick of themselves, cry off your shoulder and beg of you to not leave them. But when that need for inspiration has expired and your use is satiated. They would hover on pretty damsels and lonely nomads on street corners and eerie cafes.
But, the most dreadful thing of falling in love with writers, isn’t their actions towards life. But of, their imprint in your soul. Because, once you let a writer into your life, make them love you, give them the reins of your identity. You are forever tainted by their pervious mind and heart. You will see life as both a wondrous probability and inescapable bane.
I know this because, I have loved one. And now, I can’t stop writing about him.
Contemporary List of Authors All Writers Should Read
This comes from my fiction professor, Jess Row. Thought it could be a nice resource for other writers. I’m also using it as a list for myself, so that’s why you see the cross-outs. Italics are writers not on the original list, but writers that I’ve been recommended and may be older than writers on this list.
