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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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Jeff VanderMeer
Age: 56
Born: 1968
Born: July 7
Journalist
Literary Critic
Novelist
Science Fiction Writer
Writer
Bellefonte
Pennsylvania
Jeffrey Scott VanderMeer
Would
Cello
Electric
Instrument
Instruments
Guitar
Probably
Play

More quotes by 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. I've learned that the more I collaborate, like by having someone do a soundtrack to one of my books, the more I see my own work differently.
Jeff VanderMeer
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The best visual book I can think of is Lynda Barry's What It Is, but although I refer to it all the time it's not a creative writing book per se.
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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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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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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But what if you discover that the price of purpose is to render invisible so many other things?
Jeff VanderMeer
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If the reader enters a kind of immersive experience reading a book, then I have to enter a kind of immersive state to do my best work.
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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What occurs after revelation and paralysis?
Jeff VanderMeer
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The stories in Get In Trouble confirm once again that Kelly Link is a modern virtuoso of the form-playful and subversive required reading for anyone who loves short fiction.
Jeff VanderMeer
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The world is a mysterious place and the very limitation of our senses in exploring it means we are sometimes aware of there being something beyond our ken.
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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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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When they give you things, ask yourself why. When you're grateful to them for giving you the things you should have anyway, ask yourself why.
Jeff VanderMeer
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You can either waste time worrying about a death that might not come or concentrate on what’s left to you.
Jeff VanderMeer
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It is the nature of the writer to question the validity of his world and yet rely on his senses to describe it. From what other tension can great literature be born?
Jeff VanderMeer
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I see music as an aid. It overcomes my internal editor, especially when the music evokes the character or the mood I'm trying to build.
Jeff VanderMeer
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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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Trust your imagination. Don't be afraid to fail. Write. Revise. Revise. Revise.
Jeff VanderMeer