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" Most don't live inside their heads as a writer does, having conversations with her own ideas. "
Lynn Coady
Live
Inside
Writer
Related Quotes:
" Anger is one of those emotions that doesn't follow the letter of the law. It speaks before it thinks. It rears up on its hind legs and charges. "
Lynn Coady
Anger
Emotions
Legs
" I would never have thought my collection of short stories would win the Giller. "
Lynn Coady
Win
Never
Short
" I don't even like to cry in private. "
Lynn Coady
Cry
Like
Even
" My dad was a real man's man, and so were my brothers, in a small town where hockey is king. It's a masculine culture. It made me really attentive to what it meant to be a guy. "
Lynn Coady
Culture
Small
Me
" Never use dogs to symbolize anything. That is ridiculous. Always ensure that any dogs are just dogs; i.e., characters in the story who happen to be dogs. "
Lynn Coady
Never
Story
Always
" The novel, as a genre, was once considered a diversion every bit as frivolous as Facebook, but over the years, we've managed to convince ourselves that reading fiction is as important to our mental digestion as fresh fruits and vegetables are to the processes that take place a little further down. "
Lynn Coady
Down
Reading
Place
" We live in a society that celebrates familial connection above any other kind of relationship. We are shown photos of our great-grandparents and encouraged to marvel over facial similarities. We are told to take pride in our bloodlines, celebrate our ancestry. "
Lynn Coady
Kind
Relationship
Society
" I really do think of it in moral terms. I think that we can't kid ourselves that the storytelling impulse is innocent and does nothing but bring good to the world. "
Lynn Coady
Moral
Think
Kid
" Considerations of plot do a great deal of heavy lifting when it comes to long-form narrative - readers will overlook the most ham-fisted prose if only a writer can make them long to know what happens next. "
Lynn Coady
Narrative
Long
Know
" No matter how committed a marriage, there will always be other people - those we have chemistry with and those we don't, those we are attracted to, and those who shop for functional outdoors wear. The sooner a couple can accept the existence of the former and exchange a few basic reassurances concerning them, the easier life gets. "
Lynn Coady
People
Outdoors
Marriage
" You can't really go into TV thinking, 'Maybe I can make a few bucks doing this thing I'm only kind of interested in to support my one true love, which is prose fiction.' I think you have to love what you're doing to do it well. "
Lynn Coady
Love
Support
Think
" You can catch a scent in the wind - an idea, or a concept - and follow it. You can delve into your subconscious and see what happens, in a way you just can't when you're writing a novel. "
Lynn Coady
Writing
Follow
See
" Formalized rules of manners were so great because they left no room for basic human haplessness. They allowed us to circumvent our natural boorish tendency to disregard the feelings of others. "
Lynn Coady
Rules
Manners
Others
" When you're not sure your anger is justified, the thing to do is ask yourself exactly where it's coming from. "
Lynn Coady
Coming
Anger
You
" Something I've always written about is social expectations: that the eyes of the community are on you all the time, expecting you to line up with certain social norms, certain behaviours. Whenever you forgot about them, they'd be strongly reiterated to you, in no uncertain terms. "
Lynn Coady
Community
Time
Eyes
" While Person A might believe the kitchen counter provides a reasonable surface on which to place one's balled-up sweatsocks post-gym, Person B - about to cut up some vegetables on that same counter, perhaps for a meal intended to be shared with Person A - can only read the sockball as a message that says, 'Hi! I have contempt for you!' "
Lynn Coady
Believe
You
Vegetables
" I still find the idea of a research-heavy or historical novel daunting. That's something I've had in mind for a while: like, would you research for a year and then start writing? I sit down, and I just don't know how to write it. "
Lynn Coady
Writing
Know
Mind
" The fundamentals for me are character and conflict. I put character first because readers will be indifferent to conflict if they are indifferent to the character who is experiencing it. "
Lynn Coady
Fundamentals
Conflict
Me
" A bunch of chairs lined up in front of a podium equals school. "
Lynn Coady
Chairs
Podium
School
" I should say I am not much of a gamer - anymore. The reason for this is that I have to make a living, and my body requires vitamin D, and I've come to value the heady pleasures of human interaction over the temporary exhilaration of reaching the 'next level.' "
Lynn Coady
Body
Value
Say
" To buy dinner transmits that you feel time spent in your date's company has been a pleasure and a privilege. "
Lynn Coady
Dinner
Your
You
" It's kind of sad, the way we've turned the entertainment of reading into a kind of psychic broccoli - something to feel guilty about if you don't force it on your face-making children while dutifully consuming a few token florets yourself. "
Lynn Coady
Children
Reading
Sad
" I just have to trust that the story is going to shake out in such a way that's going to be palatable to readers. "
Lynn Coady
Story
Trust
Way
" The creative process taps into our deepest subconscious, and we are each of us sex-crazed - products of a shame-based Judeo-Christian culture that has irrevocably warped us all to varying degrees. "
Lynn Coady
Creative
Process
Us
" I went into the world confident my tea training would open many doors. And I did particularly well with the Irish and fellow Nova Scotians over 60. But this only got me so far. It took a long time to cultivate the tricks of easy social interaction. "
Lynn Coady
Me
World
Time
" Grownups, as a rule, should always be ready to pay for their own meals - or else ready to graciously accept their date's insistence on paying. The point is, one doesn't sit there batting one's eyelashes, fully expecting someone else to claim the bill. "
Lynn Coady
Accept
Someone
Sit
" I've never understood people who treat their loved ones worse and with less respect than they would a total stranger or minor acquaintance. "
Lynn Coady
Loved
Never
People
" It's the typical mid-life crisis kind of thing, where you just stop and wonder, 'Should I go back to university and get a law degree?' I kind of looked around me and thought, 'What kind of idiot am I that I've just spent the last 10 years writing novels? Financially, I'm pretty much where I was when I was 28.' "
Lynn Coady
Writing
Law
Me
" The masterstroke of male fraternity, I believed, was the practice of never speaking of anything remotely personal or related to one's emotions. That way, no one is ever made uncomfortable. Any such awkward moments can always be dispelled with a flurry of pretend-punches. "
Lynn Coady
Fraternity
Practice
Moments
" Flowers are an easy, eloquent expression of love at a time when words can seem clumsy and inadequate. "
Lynn Coady
Seem
Love
Easy