Wilderness Blues

“the wilderness closed behind his entrance as it had opened momentarily to accept him, opening before his advancement as it closed behind his progress”― William Faulkner, The Bear

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uaBrG_oT6E
Hard Time Killin’ Floor Blues

“Talk, talk, talk: the utter and heartbreaking stupidity of words.”
― William Faulkner, Mosquitoes

Faulkner’s best tips on writing:

“Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world…would do this, it would change the earth.”
― William Faulkner

William Faulkner and life, writing, wilderness and creative arts

1. Writing is not about the author, but the product.

Faulkner said in an interview with Paris Review:

“If I had not existed, someone else would have written me, Hemingway, Dostoyevsky, all of us. Proof of that is that there are about three candidates for the authorship of Shakespeare’s plays. But what is important is Hamlet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, not who wrote them, but that somebody did.”

2. There’s nothing wrong with borrowing.

In a lecture to a writing class, Faulkner said the following:

“I think the writer, as I’ve said before, is completely amoral. He takes whatever he needs, wherever he needs, and he does that openly and honestly because he himself hopes that what he does will be good enough so that after him people will take from him, and they are welcome to take from him, as he feels that he would be welcome by the best of his predecessors to take what they had done.”

3. The best writers are insatiable.

In the same Paris Review interview, the author remarked rather boldly:

“Ninety-nine percent talent… ninety-nine percent discipline… ninety-nine percent work. He must never be satisfied with what he does. It never is as good as it can be done. Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do. Don’t bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.”

4. The story itself is more important than the style.

In another lecture given to a writing class, Faulkner said:

“I think the story compels its own style to a great extent, that the writer don’t need to bother too much about style. If he’s bothering about style, then he’s going to write precious emptiness–-not necessarily nonsense… it’ll be quite beautiful and quite pleasing to the ear, but there won’t be much content in it.”

5. A writer must be a reader.

“Read, read, read. Read everything — trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write. If it’s good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out of the window.”

6. Just do it.

“I’ve heard people say, “Well, if I were not married and had children, I would be a writer.” I’ve heard people say, “If I could just stop doing this, I would be a writer.” I don’t believe that. I think if you’re going to write you’re going to write, and nothing will stop you.”

~William Cuthbert Falkner

“Some things you must always be unable to bear. Some things you must never stop refusing to bear. Injustice and outrage and dishonor and shame. No matter how young you are or how old you have got. Not for kudos and not for cash: your picture in the paper nor money in the back either. Just refuse to bear them.”
― William Faulkner, Intruder in the Dust

https://youtu.be/1EngRmYu_vs?list=RDEMdhL5_5XOi9To0Enyx7cIaw
Mose Allison the seventh son

William Faulkner was born in 1897 in New Albany, Mississippi, where his father was then working as a conductor on the railroad built by the novelist’s great-grandfather,

“Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world…would do this, it would change the earth.”
― William Faulkner

William Faulkner, ca. 1954. Photograph by Carl Van Vechten

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