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User Name Thread Name Subject Posted
Bonnie Shaljean Obit: Author Ursula Kroeber LeGuin (1929-2018) (13) RE: Obit: Author Ursula Kroeber LeGuin (1929-2018) 25 Jan 18


One of my all-time favourite books on writing & reading is a collection of her pieces, titled The Language of the Night - Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction, which is now ridiculously hard to get ahold of. I read it years ago, and one passage has always stuck in my mind. I copied it out at the time, on a slip of paper which has long since disappeared into some alternative universe. But I pored over it so often that I can pretty accurately quote at least one bit of it. I'm typing from memory so this is partly paraphrase, but:

[U.K.leG]
When people find out I'm a writer, they always want to know the same thing. How did I do it? How do you become a writer, they say to me. So I tell them. How to become a writer:

You write.

Honestly, why do people ask this? I give them the one answer I have, and it's never what they want to hear. Rules, they say. There must be some rules. What are the Rules to becoming a writer? But the only rules I know of are those for grammar, spelling, and punctuation. So the discussion never gets off the ground, and we all stand around on the ruins of the launch pad, arguing.

- - -

Brilliant stuff. Rest in peace, Ursula. Say hi to everybody for us.


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