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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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Jeff VanderMeer
Age: 56
Born: 1968
Born: July 7
Journalist
Literary Critic
Novelist
Science Fiction Writer
Writer
Bellefonte
Pennsylvania
Jeffrey Scott VanderMeer
Beyond
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Place
Sometimes
Exploring
Mean
Limitation
Something
Mysterious
World
Senses
Aware
More quotes by Jeff VanderMeer
I believe the best creative writing lessons live in the specifics.
Jeff VanderMeer
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
There's also a lot of gritty Americana type of bands. I actually have a lot of Britpop on my iPod, too.
Jeff VanderMeer
Who had the bigger burden? The one who had to watch the other person endure or the one who endured?
Jeff VanderMeer
I’ve got...ways of tricking my brain into getting what I need out of it
Jeff VanderMeer
My parents read to me a lot as a kid, and I started writing very early, probably spurred on by Aesop's fables. Then they gave me The Lord of the Rings way too early for me to fully understand what I was reading, which was actually kind of cool. It was almost better - comprehension's overrated when you're reading.
Jeff VanderMeer
Trust your imagination. Don't be afraid to fail. Write. Revise. Revise. Revise.
Jeff VanderMeer
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
My singing ability is zilch.
Jeff VanderMeer
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
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
I always try to be alert to the potential for repetition, for a decaying orbit with regard to my use of technique, etc.
Jeff VanderMeer
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
But what if you discover that the price of purpose is to render invisible so many other things?
Jeff VanderMeer
My best time to write is right after coffee and breakfast - four eggs because, full disclosure: I'm really a komodo dragon - and that's because then I'm energized but not so awake that the critical voice clicks on, the voice that sometimes says, Don't write that, or Man, that sentence is terrible - you should give up and go pet the cats.
Jeff VanderMeer
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
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
So many differing opinions and philosophies... are rarely housed under the roof of a single magazine.
Jeff VanderMeer
If I wasn't a writer, I don't know what I'd be. Probably a marine biologist or something.
Jeff VanderMeer
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