Monday, July 19, 2004

The importance of being Earnest

Hemingway wrote every day, perfecting his writing style, following his motto, "All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know." Sometimes he wrote in his apartment and sometimes in cafés. He wrote in a letter to his father: "I'm trying in all my stories to get the feeling of the actual life across—not to just depict life—or criticize it—but to actually make it alive. So that when you have read something by me you actually experience the thing. You can't do this without putting in the bad and the ugly as well as what is beautiful. Because if it is all beautiful you can't believe in it. Things aren't that way. It is only by showing both sides—3 dimensions and if possible 4 that you can write the way I want to."

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