As I get older I find myself thinking it all begins with Shakespeare. Ron Rash More Quotes by Ron Rash More Quotes From Ron Rash What made losing someone you loved bearable was not remembering but forgetting. Forgetting small things first... it's amazing how much you could forget, and everything you forgot made that person less alive inside you until you could finally endure it. After more time passed you could let yourself remember, even want to remember. But even then what you felt those first days could return and remind you the grief was still there, like old barbed wire embedded in a tree's heartwood. Ron Rash losing-someone grief tree But nothing is solid and permanent. Our lives are raised on the shakiest foundations. You don't need to read history books to know that. You only have to know the history of your own life. Ron Rash foundation book needs I learnt how to hunt rattlesnakes with an eagle for Serena. Ron Rash rattlesnakes hunts eagles Like Flannery O'Connor, McCorkle's genius is to give us both philosophical speculation and a riveting narrative filled with unforgettable characters. Great writing, poignancy, humor, wisdom-all are in abundance here. Jill McCorkle is one of the South's greatest writers; she is also one of America's. Ron Rash philosophical writing character Peter Geye has rendered the Minnesota north shore in all its stark, dangerous beauty, and it is the perfect backdrop for this deeply moving story of conflict and forgiveness. Safe from the Sea is a remarkable debut. Ron Rash sea perfect moving It struck her how eating was a comfort during a hard time because it reminded you that there had been other days, good days, when you’d eaten the same thing. Reminded you there were good days in life, when precious little else did. (268) Ron Rash good-day hard-times comfort She realized that being starved for words was the same as being starved for food, because both left a hollow place inside you, a place you needed filled to make it through another day. Rachel remembered how growing up she’d thought living on a farm with just a father was as lonely as you could be. (130) Ron Rash growing-up lonely father Sometimes I know what my characters are moving away from or toward; more often I just wait and see. For instance, though I knew Sinkler in 'The Trusty' was going for water, I did not know that he would meet a fetching young farm wife until I got him into her front yard. Ron Rash character water moving Short fiction is the medium I love the most, because it requires that I bring everything I've learned about poetry - the concision, the ability to say something as vividly as possible - but also the ability to create a narrative that, though lacking a novel's length, satisfies the reader. Ron Rash ive-learned narrative fiction On the last drafts, I focus on the words themselves, including the rub of vowels and consonants, stressed and unstressed syllables. Yet even at this stage I'm often surprised. A different ending or a new character shows up and I'm back to where I began, letting the story happen, just trying to stay out of the way. Ron Rash focus trying character I usually do at least a dozen drafts and progressively make more-conscious decisions. Because I've always believed stories are closer to poems than novels, I spend a lot of time on the story's larger rhythms, such as sentence and paragraph length, placement of flashbacks and dialogue. Ron Rash dozen decision stories I think writing a poem is like being a greyhound. Writing a novel is like being a mule. You go up one long row, then down another, and try not to look up too often to see how far you still have to go. Ron Rash writing long thinking I think that's what I love about writing, is the ability to try to, in a sense, take a vacation from yourself and try to enter the sensibility of another time, another character, another place. Ron Rash writing character thinking I think I had a particular moment when I was 15 years old. I read 'Crime and Punishment,' and that book just, I think, more than any other book made me want to be a writer, 'cause it was the first time that I hadn't just entered a book, but a book had entered me. Ron Rash book years thinking I love learning about different dialects and I own all sorts of regional and time-period slang dictionaries. I often browse through relevant ones while writing a story. I also read a lot of diaries and oral histories. Ron Rash different diaries writing You got one choice at the beginning but if you didn't choose right, things got narrow real quick. Ron Rash choices real ifs
