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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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Jeff VanderMeer
Age: 56
Born: 1968
Born: July 7
Journalist
Literary Critic
Novelist
Science Fiction Writer
Writer
Bellefonte
Pennsylvania
Jeffrey Scott VanderMeer
Senses
Writer
Question
Literature
Born
Validity
Nature
Describe
Great
Tension
World
Rely

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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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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.
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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.
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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.
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I believe the best creative writing lessons live in the specifics.
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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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I always try to be alert to the potential for repetition, for a decaying orbit with regard to my use of technique, etc.
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I had learned so much about the world that I had decided to withdraw from it.
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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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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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History has shown us all too often the consequences of dreaming poorly or not at all.
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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.
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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.
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But what if you discover that the price of purpose is to render invisible so many other things?
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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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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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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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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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I’ve got...ways of tricking my brain into getting what I need out of it
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