Kurt Vonnegut’s Advice for Writers
Kurt Vonnegut says fiction is an art form unto its own.
“All of fiction is a practical joke-making people care, laugh, cry or be nauseated or whatever by something which absolutely not going on at all.
“It’s like saying, ‘Hey, your pants are on fire.’ “
One of his pieces of advice I most appreciate:
“Don’t worry about getting into the profession. Write anyway to make your soul grow.
From interview: Vonnegut on Fiction, in Writing Fiction Today, Winter 2001, a specialty publication from Writer’s Digest.
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Related articles:
Kurt Vonnegut: This guesser or that one.
Madness and creativity: do we need to be crazy? — Nancy Andreasen, M.D.: “As a psychiatrist and neuroscientist who studies creativity, I’ve had the pleasure of working with many gifted and high-profile subjects over the years, but Kurt Vonnegut — dear, funny, eccentric, lovable, tormented Kurt Vonnegut — will always be one of my favorites.”
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Originally published at https://thecreativemind.substack.com.