Ernest Hemingway on Writing

  "Throughout Ernest Hemingway's career as a writer," says Larry W. Phillips in his introduction to Ernest Hemingway on Writing, "he maintained that it was bad luck to talk about writing." Hemingway seems to have courted bad luck. Phillips has amassed a slender book's worth of Hemingway's reflections on writing, culled from letters, books, interviews, speeches, and an unpublished manuscript. These musings are arranged into topics such as "Advice to Writers," "Working Habits," and "Obscenity" (of which there is plenty here). Sometimes ponderous, other times offhand, these thoughts form a portrait of a man driven to create not solely the best writing he could, but the best writing, period. Hemingway craved exactness, both in his work and in the work of others; he strove to make every word necessary. "Eschew the monumental," he wrote to Maxwell Perkins in 1932. "Shun the Epic. All the guys who can paint great big pictures can paint great small ones." His aim? Mere perfection. "I write one page of masterpiece to ninety one pages of shit," he confided to F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1934. "I try to put the shit in the wastebasket." --Jane Steinberg    

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Comments

[Johnny]

Awesome choice! I love that book!
A must-read for any aspiring writer:^)

[Larry W. Phillips]

Hey, thanks for the kind words, and the mention--
Best,
Larry W. Phillips

[Jim Seiler]

I have added this book to the list I hope to pick up . . . the '34 quote to F. Scott Fitzgerald is quite an insight into Hemingway's thought process and, when you think of it, an interesting perspective on life in general. Anyone know where the photo is from? It is amazingly introspective and something that would be great to have.