My own experience is that once a story has been written, one has to cross out the beginning and the end. It is there that we authors do most of our lying.
The men who act stand nearer to the mass of man than the men who write; and it is in their hands that new thought gets its translation into the crude language of deeds.
The writer who aims at producing the platitudes which are "not for an age, but for all time" has his reward in being unreadable inall ages.... The man who writes about himself and his own time is the only sort of man who writes about all people and about all time.
Everybody is writing, writing, writing - worst of all, writing poetry. It'd be better if the whole tribe of the scribblers - every damned one of us - were sent off somewhere with tool chests to do some honest work.
If I had my way, I would write the word 'insure' over every door of every cottage and upon the blotting pad of every public man, because I am convinced that, for sacrifice that are conceivably small, families can be secured against catastrophes which otherwise would smash them forever.
But what is more to the point is my belief that the habit of writing thus for my own eye only is good practice. It loosens the ligaments. Never mind the misses and the stumbles.
My music is very raw, it's emotional, and it's honest. I do my best to tell a story whenever I write music because I want to paint the most vivid picture that tells a story whether a person is falling in love for the first time or going through a painful heartbreak.
No matter where; of comfort no man speak: Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs; Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth
A handwritten letter carries a lot of risk. It's a one-sided conversation that reveals the truth of the writer. Furthermore, the writer is not there to see the reaction of the person he writes to, so there's a great unknown to the process that requires a leap of faith. The writer has to choose the right words to express his sentences, and then, once he has sealed the envelope, he has to place those thoughts in the hands of someone else, trusting that the feelings will be delivered, and that the recipient will understand the writer's intent. How childish to think that could be easy.