Theodora Goss Quotes
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Writing is an art like other arts. Dancers don't dance every once in a while. Musicians don't stop practicing. They are dedicated to what they do.
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Understanding what is going on in the world today inspires me in a negative sense because there's so much about it that I don't like - political stupidity, environmental degradation, etc. And that makes me want to change it, to make a difference in the world.
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I'm used to writing fairy tales that can be somewhat dark, and the truth is that in fairy tales, romances are always problematic. They may end happily ever after, but someone's getting pushed into an oven or has blood in her shoe.
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I'm working on a poetry collection for Papaveria Press . It fills me with trepidation - poetry is something I'm much more self-conscious about than prose.
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The appeal of writing a romance was that I'd never written one before the The Thorn and The Blossom.
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If you’re a writer, your first duty, a duty you owe to yourself and your readers, and to your writing itself, is to become wonderful. To become the best writer you can possibly be.
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Write all the time. I believe in writing every day, at least a thousand words a day. We have a strange idea about writing: that it can be done, and done well, without a great deal of effort. Dancers practice every day, musicians practice every day, even when they are at the peak of their careers – especially then. Somehow, we don’t take writing as seriously. But writing – writing wonderfully – takes just as much dedication.
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I co-edited an anthology called Interfictions with Delia Sherman and wrote a short scholarly book on three women poets called Voices from Fairyland: The Fantastical Poems of Mary Coleridge, Charlotte Mew, and Sylvia Townsend Warner. So I've been busy, but I haven't had time to write a novel.
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It happened the way I come up with any story, which is that I took elements of my own life and put them into the story, but in a very mixed-up way.
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It's very difficult to put in the work unless you believe that what you're doing is significant in some way.
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Jorge Luis Borges wrote a poem when he was in his 80s about one day writing the book that would justify him. This was long after he had become one of the great masters, a writer everyone looks up to and reveres. As artists, I don't think we ever see ourselves as done. We always think we're at the beginning . . .
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In the Forest of Forgetting do you remember any romances? All the relationships in those stories are dark and twisted - people fall in love, but they really shouldn't have. There's even a story about a marriage, but it focuses on a woman who marries a bear!
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The Thorn and The Blossom can be read from either side - you can choose whether to read it from Brendan's or Evelyn's perspective first, and each one will give you a different sense of what happens in the story.
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Perhaps it’s when you come to the realization that the point of life isn’t to be rich, or secure, or even to be loved - to be any of the things that people usually think is the point. The point of life is to live as deeply as possible, to experience fully. And that can be done in so many ways.
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The format of the book was the idea of my wonderful editor, Stephen Segal. Stephen and I had worked together before, on projects for the Interstitial Arts Foundation, and when he got the idea for an accordion-style book, he called and asked if I could write the story for it. I told him that I would love to try! And I knew it had to be a love story, because that's the sort of story you really want to hear from both perspectives. I mean, imagine if Pride and Prejudice were told from Darcy's perspective as well as Elizabeth's. It would be quite a different story!
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The book itself [The Thorn and The Blossom] is bound accordion-style: it has no spine, so it can open in either direction, and it's in a slipcase.
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I talked on my blog recently about "uncommon sense." Common sense is called "common" because it reflects cultural consensus. It's common sense to get a good job and save for retirement. But I think we all also have an "uncommon sense," an individual voice that tells us what we're meant to do.
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If you believe you have a voice and something to say, chances are you do, and the world needs you to do whatever you're drawn to do. So you should do it.
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Learn as much as you can. Take every opportunity to learn about writing, whether it’s through classes, workshops, whatever is available to you. This may be difficult, because things like classes, workshops, writing programs, require time and money. But I say this honestly and somewhat harshly – if you’re not willing to prioritize your writing, perhaps you should do something else?
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I had a short story collection come out in 2006, and then I couldn't work on large projects for a long time because I was finishing my doctoral degree.
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I see so many talented writers who have difficulties with that. And if you don't believe it's important, you won't put in the work you need to.
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It's appropriate to have magic in a love story, because magic is a sort of metaphor for what love feels like? When we fall in love, the world feels magical to us. It becomes an enchanted place.
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Read a lot. But read as a writer, to see how other writers are doing it. And make your knowledge of literature in English as deep and broad as you can. In workshops, writers are often told to read what is being written now, but if that is all you read, you are limiting yourself. You need to get a good overall sense of English literary history, so you can write out of that knowledge.
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I've heard some readers saying they wished the story was longer, and I completely understand that desire - we all like to sink into a nice, long novel.
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Nature inspires me continually. Today, I can look out my window and see the entire world covered with snow. It's like Narnia under the White Witch.
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So much work went into this book [ "The Thorn & The Blossom"] - you can probably tell from looking at the art and overall design.
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I think part of my purpose in this life is to talk about magic, and to make it.
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If you look at the natural world, really look at it, it's always magical.
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I actually pushed the boundaries on how long a book like this [The Thorn and the Blossom] can be. The original plan called for two 7,500 word stories, and I turned in two 10,000 word stories.
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I would tell myself to get more sleep! Believe it or not, I wrote the book while finishing my PhD in English literature. It was wonderful to get away from doing literary scholarship by writing this mythical love story. I think so much of my own love for books and scholarship comes through in The Thorn and the Blossom.
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