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Hello, world. The other day I sat down and chatted with William Faulkner, Nobel Prize winning author of The Sound and The Fury and As I Lay Dying. Here's what he had to say.
Greg: You start. I can't think of a good interview questiton yet.
William: Okay, here goes. If I were reincarnated, I'd want to come back a buzzard. Nothing hates him or envies him or wants him or needs him. He is never bothered or in danger, and he can eat anything.
Greg: Eating! My favorite subject. Let's talk ice cream.
William: Pointless. . . . Like giving caviar to an elephant.
Greg: Okay, back to writing. How about a tip for writers, you Nobel Prize winner you.
William: 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 is good, you'll find out. If it's not, throw it out the window.
Greg: What if you don't have a window?
William: Who doesn't have a window?
Greg: Homeless people. But let's move on. You've had your disputes with Earnest Hemingway over style. Any thoughts?
William: He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to a dictionary.
Greg: A guy after my own heart. Plus, he likes to fish!
William: A mule will labor ten years willingly and patiently for you, for the privilege of kicking you once.
Greg: Okay, I'll behave. I'll stop talking about Hemingway.
William: Please do. Now back to writing...A writer must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid.
Greg: Go on...you're on a roll.
William: Which is considerably better than being on a croissant.
Greg: Bill, you made a funny!
William: You bring it out in me. Okay, moving on...the writer's only responsibility is to his art. He will be completely ruthless if he is a good one. He has a dream. It anguishes him so much he must get rid of it. He has no peace until then.
Greg: Any last words?
William: 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.
Greg: One more, Bill. Please?
William: Stop calling me Bill. Let the writer take up surgery or bricklaying if he is interested in technique. There is no mechanical way to get the writing done, no shortcut. The young writer would be a fool to follow a theory. Teach yourself by your own mistakes; people learn only by error. The good artist believes that nobody is good enough to give him advice. He has supreme vanity. No matter how much he admires the old writer, he wants to beat him.
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