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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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Jeff VanderMeer
Age: 56
Born: 1968
Born: July 7
Journalist
Literary Critic
Novelist
Science Fiction Writer
Writer
Bellefonte
Pennsylvania
Jeffrey Scott VanderMeer
Book
Writing
Barry
Time
Refer
Think
Visuals
Thinking
Visual
Although
Creative
Best

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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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If I could play an instrument, it would probably be a cello or an electric guitar.
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Silence creates it's own violence.
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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.
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My mom is an artist and my own fiction is deeply visual.
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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.
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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.
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Who had the bigger burden? The one who had to watch the other person endure or the one who endured?
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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I also am not particularly risk-averse - I don't mind jumping off a cliff if I trust the people who've told me they'll catch me at the bottom.
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