Quote

The music I listen to while writing is really scene-specific. It's just a great motivator, a way to put myself in the mood.

Jeff VanderMeer

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Jeff VanderMeer
Age: 56
Born: 1968
Born: July 7
Journalist
Literary Critic
Novelist
Science Fiction Writer
Writer
Bellefonte
Pennsylvania
Jeffrey Scott VanderMeer
Great
Writing
Really
Motivator
Way
Specific
Mood
Scene
Listen
Music

More quotes by Jeff VanderMeer

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I like to go through the zine sections of local bookstores when on the road and have found a lot of really great kind of underground stuff that way. It all feeds into everything else.
Jeff VanderMeer
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History has shown us all too often the consequences of dreaming poorly or not at all.
Jeff VanderMeer
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Film fixes a precise visual image in the viewer's head. In fiction, you just hope you're precise enough to convey the intended effect.
Jeff VanderMeer
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Dreams, though, are just one kind of inspiration - no more or less special than something in a newspaper article or from the world around you sparking inspiration.
Jeff VanderMeer
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I have always tended toward a lush prose style, but I take care to modulate it from story to story and to strip it down entirely when necessary.
Jeff VanderMeer
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Angela Carter's fiction blew me away and really instilled a passion for writing, bolstered by Vladimir Nabokov. But in general, I can't point to any one thing. I just always loved books and writing.
Jeff VanderMeer
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I've always wrestled with the difference between plot and structure, and after re-reading a lot of writing books I realized I wasn't alone.
Jeff VanderMeer
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A lot of the creature comforts and the things we take for granted, are not sustainable, especially at current population levels. And so, it's not just simply a matter of changing over to solar. It's a matter of changing our philosophies. Of learning to live, more or less, mid- or post-apocalyptic, whatever apocalyptic means.
Jeff VanderMeer
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Angela Carter, Leonora Carrington, even nonsurrealists like Kafka and Nabokov - writers like these, who create paths between the firmly grounded and flights of fantasy, are my personal North Star.
Jeff VanderMeer
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If I wasn't a writer, I don't know what I'd be. Probably a marine biologist or something.
Jeff VanderMeer
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I’ve got...ways of tricking my brain into getting what I need out of it
Jeff VanderMeer
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There's also a lot of gritty Americana type of bands. I actually have a lot of Britpop on my iPod, too.
Jeff VanderMeer
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So many differing opinions and philosophies... are rarely housed under the roof of a single magazine.
Jeff VanderMeer
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My mother is an artist, and I have a strong visual sense. I almost always choose the cover art for my books.
Jeff VanderMeer
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I believe the best creative writing lessons live in the specifics.
Jeff VanderMeer
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Once you realize there's less logic in human institutions than you once thought, you see the narrative potential in just about everything around you. Sometimes, in fact, it seems as if the human world runs on inefficiency and erratic behavior.
Jeff VanderMeer
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My singing ability is zilch.
Jeff VanderMeer
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If I could play an instrument, it would probably be a cello or an electric guitar.
Jeff VanderMeer
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Who had the bigger burden? The one who had to watch the other person endure or the one who endured?
Jeff VanderMeer
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What occurs after revelation and paralysis?
Jeff VanderMeer