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Delia Sherman once told me that you never learn to write a story. You only learn to write the story you are currently writing. You have to learn how to write the next story all over again. And she's absolutely right.

Theodora Goss

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Theodora Goss
Age: 56
Born: 1968
Born: September 30
Novelist
Writer
Buda Pest
Never
Told
Story
Learn
Write
Next
Delia
Stories
Sherman
Right
Currently
Writing
Absolutely

More quotes by Theodora Goss

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I talked on my blog recently about uncommon sense. Common sense is called common because it reflects cultural consensus. It's common sense to get a good job and save for retirement. But I think we all also have an uncommon sense, an individual voice that tells us what we're meant to do.
Theodora Goss
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Understanding what is going on in the world today inspires me in a negative sense because there's so much about it that I don't like - political stupidity, environmental degradation, etc. And that makes me want to change it, to make a difference in the world.
Theodora Goss
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When we tell stories about things that are important - love, fear, beauty - we change the way people think about the world. Writers are, or should be, truth-tellers even when the stories themselves are fantasy.
Theodora Goss
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I co-edited an anthology called Interfictions with Delia Sherman and wrote a short scholarly book on three women poets called Voices from Fairyland: The Fantastical Poems of Mary Coleridge, Charlotte Mew, and Sylvia Townsend Warner. So I've been busy, but I haven't had time to write a novel.
Theodora Goss
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I'm working on a poetry collection for Papaveria Press . It fills me with trepidation - poetry is something I'm much more self-conscious about than prose.
Theodora Goss
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What writers do - everything comes from inside, from experiences of the world that we have digested. And then we turn it into silk, or stories.
Theodora Goss
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Art inspires me. Looking at art in a museum, listening to music, reading the works of other writers.
Theodora Goss
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The book[ The Thorn and The Blossom] is a love story about two people, Brendan and Evelyn, who meet in a small town in Cornwall where Evelyn has gone on vacation and Brendan is working in his father's bookstore. The story is told from both perspectives, Brendan's and Evelyn's.
Theodora Goss
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I would tell myself to get more sleep! Believe it or not, I wrote the book while finishing my PhD in English literature. It was wonderful to get away from doing literary scholarship by writing this mythical love story. I think so much of my own love for books and scholarship comes through in The Thorn and the Blossom.
Theodora Goss
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It's appropriate to have magic in a love story, because magic is a sort of metaphor for what love feels like? When we fall in love, the world feels magical to us. It becomes an enchanted place.
Theodora Goss
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I had a short story collection come out in 2006, and then I couldn't work on large projects for a long time because I was finishing my doctoral degree.
Theodora Goss
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I think part of my purpose in this life is to talk about magic, and to make it.
Theodora Goss
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I worry very much that people won't like it, or will think it's simply silly. But I have a post-it note above my desk that says What would you do if you weren't afraid? And if I weren't afraid, I would do a poetry collection.
Theodora Goss
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I've heard some readers saying they wished the story was longer, and I completely understand that desire - we all like to sink into a nice, long novel.
Theodora Goss
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The book itself [The Thorn and The Blossom] is bound accordion-style: it has no spine, so it can open in either direction, and it's in a slipcase.
Theodora Goss
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Writing is an art like other arts. Dancers don't dance every once in a while. Musicians don't stop practicing. They are dedicated to what they do.
Theodora Goss
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I loved writing something people usually have - miscommunication, for example. Now that I've written a romance, I'm sure I'll write more: it's fascinating to put people together and see what happens, how they fall in love and what that means in their lives.
Theodora Goss
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Jorge Luis Borges wrote a poem when he was in his 80s about one day writing the book that would justify him. This was long after he had become one of the great masters, a writer everyone looks up to and reveres. As artists, I don't think we ever see ourselves as done. We always think we're at the beginning . . .
Theodora Goss
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If you look at the natural world, really look at it, it's always magical.
Theodora Goss
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Accept criticism. If you do not offer your work for criticism and accept that criticism, meaning give it serious thought and attention, then you will never improve.
Theodora Goss