New Tumblr
I am over here now —> http://summerscourtney.tumblr.com
Let’s follow each other!
March 2013
1 post
February 2012
1 post
“I have not met, nor do I ever expect to meet, an informed, intelligent person who believes in censorship. They believe that objective evaluations of obscenity can be made. I do not. Your own point of view with regard to [poet Irving] Layton is a classic example. Are you in a position to deprive people of the right to read and enjoy Layton? I don’t ask you to read and enjoy Layton; I ask merely that you give others the right to do so. I don’t propose to argue the pros and cons of censorship here. I have neither the time nor the energy. The fact is that John Milton treated the subject exhaustively in the seventeenth century and no further argument should have been necessary. I urge you to consider his views.”
—publisher Jack McClelland’s (of McClelland & Stewart) response to an irate reader who wrote him protesting the content and the language used by M&S poet Irving Layton.
From Imagining Canadian Literature: The Selected Letters of Jack McClelland
From Imagining Canadian Literature: The Selected Letters of Jack McClelland
October 2011
1 post
The Impossible Dream (The Quest)
Original Broadway Cast
Man of la Mancha - The Impossible Dream (The Quest)
this one’s for you, dad. xo
September 2011
2 posts
“You say, “That is not me. I could never be like that. That person is other, is undeserving, a monster.” It’s an old story. It’s how wars begin, it’s how people turn on each other. And you know, it starts so simply too: “I am not you. I am nothing like you.” And it is, each time, a lie. Because underneath all the layers of fear and the protection, we are, at our core, the same. We have the same needs. We carry with us the same capacity for good and evil […] you are … every person you will ever meet.”
—Dr. Tom, Being Erica (Season 4, episode 1)
maybe something to remember when writing, too. maybe you are every character you will ever write & maybe keeping that in mind will make them come alive off the page.
or maybe I just love this television show. (spoiler: I do.)
maybe something to remember when writing, too. maybe you are every character you will ever write & maybe keeping that in mind will make them come alive off the page.
or maybe I just love this television show. (spoiler: I do.)
“But this is not seemly, my lady—on thy knees to me?”
“My lord, you’re not well!”
“Not well? What is illness to the body of a Knight Errant? What matter wounds? For each time he falls he shall rise again and woe to the wicked! Sancho!”
“Here, your Grace!”
“My armour! My sword!”
“More misadventures!”
“Adventures, old friend!” — Man of La Mancha
“My lord, you’re not well!”
“Not well? What is illness to the body of a Knight Errant? What matter wounds? For each time he falls he shall rise again and woe to the wicked! Sancho!”
“Here, your Grace!”
“My armour! My sword!”
“More misadventures!”
“Adventures, old friend!” — Man of La Mancha
August 2011
1 post
“Don’t despise hate. It can keep a person going a long time. And people who have been hurt have got a right to a certain amount of it. It’s a dead end, it’s a trap, but understand that it’s part of surviving, it’s a bridge, it’s a bridge to the future. Hating the person who hurts you is important. Sometimes it’s anger. Women don’t like being angry, women are afraid of anger and we will hurt ourselves rather than be angry with those who are hurting us but sometimes it’s anger that keeps a woman alive.”
—Andrea Dworkin
June 2011
2 posts
SLATE'S 10 TIPS ON WRITING YA FICTION
(read the original article here)
01. Remember! Your audience can’t vote yet, so you don’t have to worry about giving them too much to think about.
02 In fact, the less thinking and the more immaturity you bring to the table the better. No shame.
03. If you aren’t sure your dialogue is authentic enough, try the Kevin Williamson Test. This involves reading your dialogue aloud and adding the word “Dawson” to the end of it. ie, “All of this talking about deep stuff weirds me out, Dawson.”
04. Because kids remember Dawson’s Creek don’t they? They’re still into it, right? I don’t know! I’m an old!
05. If you aren’t comfortable with the material you’re writing, reading it aloud in a mocking voice will help.
06. When people ask you what you do for a living, don’t tell them you write young adult fiction. No one takes YA authors seriously. Tell them you are “paid good money” to be a “literary predator [that] comes for people’s children.” They’ll take you WAY more seriously then!
07. Forget everything you’ve ever heard about the editorial process. We don’t do that editing stuff in YA.
08. Also no one judges you in YA! Standards?! What are they? No standards! Only the FREEDOM OF STORYTELLING, BABY!
09. If “fast and loose” isn’t your mantra, it should be. I hope you haven’t read that draft of your book too much! (See tip #7.)
10. No slutty werewolves.
Seriously you guys what is with all these facepalming articles on or about YA surfacing lately? Luckily indignance and spite helps along my writing process otherwise I would be paralyzed by both NOW if you’ll excuse me I have to go work on the 8,000th draft of my fourth book for my readers who have shown me the kind of respect and trust I want to honour and show them in return—just like (gasp) all the YA writers I’ve encountered.
“My theory was that if I behaved like a confident, cheerful person, eventually I would buy it myself, and become that. I always had traces of strength somewhere inside me, it wasn’t fake, it was just a way of summoning my courage to the fore and not letting any creeping self-doubt hinder my adventures. This method worked then, and it works now. I tell myself that I am the sort of person who can open a one-woman play in the West End, so I do. I am the sort of person who has several companies, so I do. I am the sort of person WHO WRITES A BOOK! So I do. It’s the process of having faith in the self you don’t quite know you are yet, if you see what I mean. Believing that you will find the strength, the means somehow, and trusting in that, although your legs are like jelly. You can still walk on them and you will find the bones as you walk. Yes, that’s it. The further I walk, the stronger I become. So unlike the real lived life, where the further you walk, the more your hips hurt.”
—Dawn French
March 2011
1 post
Play
February 2011
2 posts
“and sometimes when you’re on
you’re really fucking on
and your friends, they sing along
and they love you.
but the lows are so extreme
that the good seems fucking cheap
and it teases you for weeks in its absence.
” —rilo kiley, a better son/daughter
you’re really fucking on
and your friends, they sing along
and they love you.
but the lows are so extreme
that the good seems fucking cheap
and it teases you for weeks in its absence.
” —rilo kiley, a better son/daughter
“people suck, grandpa!”
—angus
January 2011
1 post
“I think I was doubting myself a lot and wasting a lot of time and feeling sorry for myself because things weren’t going easily for me. I was definitely very concerned about my place in this world, and life and everything. It’s a frightening and humbling feeling to be trying very hard at something and not getting the recognition from your peers and from the world that you think maybe—not that you deserve, because nobody deserves anything. You take your music and put it up against other people’s music that people respect and you’re thinking, I think I can at least play on the same field as these people. It doesn’t mean that, you know, “I’m so wonderful,” or anything. That was very disturbing for a long time.”
—Jen Trynin
Trynin became the spark that set off one of the most heated bidding wars of the year. Major labels vied for her, to the tune of millions of dollars in deals. Lawyers, managers, and booking agents clamored for her attention. Billboard put her on the cover. Everyone knew she was the Next Big Thing. But then she wasn’t. - Everything I’m Cracked Up to Be
Trynin became the spark that set off one of the most heated bidding wars of the year. Major labels vied for her, to the tune of millions of dollars in deals. Lawyers, managers, and booking agents clamored for her attention. Billboard put her on the cover. Everyone knew she was the Next Big Thing. But then she wasn’t. - Everything I’m Cracked Up to Be
December 2010
4 posts
My Dear Acquaintance (A Happy New Year)
Regina Spektor
Regina Spektor - My Dear Acquaintance (A Happy New Year)
my dear acquaintance, it’s so good to know you
for strength of your hand that is loving and giving
and happy new year, with love overflowing
with joy in our hearts for the blessed new year
raise your glass and we’ll have a cheer
for us all who are gathered here
and a happy new year to all that is living
to all that is gentle, kind and forgiving
raise your glass and we’ll have a cheer
my dear acquaintance, a happy new year
all of those who are hither and yonder
with love in our hearts, we grow fonder and fonder
hail to those who we hold so dear
and hail to those who are gathered here
and a happy new year to all that is living
to all that is gentle, young and forgiving
raise your glass and we’ll have a cheer
my dear acquaintance, a happy new year
happy new year.
November 2010
6 posts
“I think writing a song and recording a song and performing it live are three completely different things, in my mind. So when I write a song, it really just kind of happens in a weird way where it feels very inspired and so I don’t really think about it too much, it just sort of happens. And then when I have to record the song, that’s when you have all the questions and decisions and it becomes like a—a thing. Because as soon as you take—it’s like sometimes people see colours or dreams but if they were to try and shoot it like a movie you wouldn’t almost be able to because it’s non-linear, or the colours that you see in your mind, they don’t exist in the real world.
So as soon as you try and take a song from your mind into piano and voice and into the real world, something gets lost and it’s like a moment where, in that moment you forget how it was and it’s this new way. And then when you make a record, even those ideas that you had, then those get all turned and changed. So in the end, I think, it just becomes it’s own thing and really I think a song could be recorded a million different ways and so what my records are, it just happened like that, but it’s not like, this is how I planned it from the very beginning because I have no idea, I can’t remember.” — Regina Spektor on songwriting
That is exactly how it feels for me when I write books. Idea, drafting, revision.
So as soon as you try and take a song from your mind into piano and voice and into the real world, something gets lost and it’s like a moment where, in that moment you forget how it was and it’s this new way. And then when you make a record, even those ideas that you had, then those get all turned and changed. So in the end, I think, it just becomes it’s own thing and really I think a song could be recorded a million different ways and so what my records are, it just happened like that, but it’s not like, this is how I planned it from the very beginning because I have no idea, I can’t remember.” — Regina Spektor on songwriting
That is exactly how it feels for me when I write books. Idea, drafting, revision.
Play
Play
