i work in a book

“People often ask me if I’m working on a book,” [David McCullough] said in an interview with The New York Times in 1992. “That’s not how I feel. I feel like I work in a book. It’s like putting myself under a spell. And this spell, if you will, is so real to me that if I have to leave my work for a few days, I have to work myself back into the spell when I come back. It’s almost like hypnosis.”

David McCullough, Best-Selling Explorer of America’s Past, Dies at 89. Daniel Lewis. August 8, 2022

writing history as an art form

“I think of writing history as an art form,” Mr. McCullough said in an interview for “Painting With Words,” a short 2008 documentary about him on HBO. “And I’m striving to write a book that might — might — qualify as literature. I don’t want it just to be readable. I don’t want it just to be interesting. I want it to be something that moves the reader. Moves me.”

David McCullough, Best-Selling Explorer of America’s Past, Dies at 89. Daniel Lewis. August 8, 2022

Jesus: The Perfect Leader - Selfless leadership

The Savior’s leadership was selfless. He put himself and his own needs second and ministered to others beyond the call of duty, tirelessly, lovingly, effectively. So many of the problems in the world today spring from selfishness and self-centeredness in which too many make harsh demands of life and others in order to meet their demands. This is a direct reversal of the principles and practices pursued so perfectly by that perfect example of leadership, Jesus of Nazareth. 

Jesus’ leadership emphasized the importance of being discerning with regard to others, without seeking to control them. He cared about the freedom of his followers to choose. Even he, in those moments that mattered so much, had to choose voluntarily to go through Gethsemane and to hang on the cross at Calvary. He taught us that there can be no growth without real freedom. One of the problems with manipulative leadership is that it does not spring from a love of others but from a need to use them. Such leaders focus on their own needs and desires and not on the needs of others.

Jesus had perspective about problems and people. He was able to calculate carefully at long range the effect and impact of utterances, not only on those who were to hear them at the moment, but on those who would read them 2,000 years later. So often, secular leaders rush in to solve problems by seeking to stop the present pain, and thereby create even greater difficulty and pain later on.

  

  

Jesus: The Perfect Leader By President Spencer W. Kimball. From an address delivered to the Young Presidents organization, Sun Valley, Idaho, 15 January 1977. Ensign. August 1979.

the most important tradition that man can have

To man was given the power to gather into words his wisdom and to hand it on to his children. This handing on is tradition, and it makes the continuity of human life possible. It binds the generations together. Scripture is the most important tradition that man can have, and yet how few people make use of it. Instead they read the news. The news is what will be old tomorrow and without interest. Yet it becomes a narcotic that must be taken daily and that yields no lasting satisfaction but only another craving. “Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” (John 4:13-14.) The words of Christ and his prophets are lifegiving. They alone can give all other words real meaning.

The Lord’s Question: Thoughts on the Life of Response by Dennis Rasmussen. Brigham Young University Press. April 1985. Chapter Three, “What Mean the Testimonies?” p.32, 33

the words of life

The ancients saw, heard, and spoke the holy word, and the living spoken word enters the heart. That is one reason why Plato expressed doubt about the worth of writing. He feared that writing would not help, but hurt the power of memory. He feared also that the written word would have little power to inspire the reader by itself. Paul had the same concern when he taught that “the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.” (2 Corinthians 3:6.) The words of life do not belong in books. “These words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.” (Deuteronomy 6:6-7.) 

The Lord’s Question: Thoughts on the Life of Response by Dennis Rasmussen. Brigham Young University Press. April 1985. Chapter Three, “What Mean the Testimonies?” p.27

a great middle moment

Calvin and Hobbes had an animators sensibility… One of the things they teach you in acting is that when you come on stage, the moment doesn’t begin when you come on stage; you’re coming from somewhere and you’re coming from a series of experiences that have led to this moment. Not only in terms of your character’s overall life, but on that particular day. What were you doing ten minutes before your entrance? What were you doing an hour before your entrance? It all has an effect on how you enter, so its not a generic thing. The same goes for movement; you’re coming from somewhere and you’re going towards something. Watterson always found a great middle moment that always felt like the whole body was feeling the attitude. You can feel like the whole body was feeling the attitude. You can feel the moment before, and you can feel the moments that are coming after it. It feels like a piece of action rather than a pose.



Brad Bird, Pixar director, as quoted in Looking for Calvin and Hobbes: The Unconventional Story of Bill Watterson and His Revolutionary Comic Strip by Nevin Martell. Continuum Intl Pub Group, 2010 p.215

engage and imagine what is beyond the obvious

Watterson brings a sense of wonder to the natural world. There is a transportative quality to the snowy mornings and autumn afternoons he sketched out in black and white. You can feel this world wrapping itself around you and drawing you in – and the more you give in to Watterson ‘s power of suggestion, the more fun you’ll have.


In one panel in particular, Calvin and Hobbes are walking across a grassy meadow toward the forest on the far side. Watterson had to sketch only a few blades of grass and a lone tree in order to suggest the whole scene. Less artistically dexterous cartoonists would have to fill in every detail and every blade of grass. Next to nothing can be left to the imagination. This literalism distracts from the richness of the imaginative experience for the reader. The more you give the reader, the less their minds need to work. With Watterson’s drawings you can’t be complacent, you need to engage and imagine what is beyond the obvious. In this way, a casual walk across a meadow becomes an afternoon in the woods for the reader.


Looking for Calvin and Hobbes: The Unconventional Story of Bill Watterson and His Revolutionary Comic Strip by Nevin Martell. Continuum Intl Pub Group, 2010 p. 111

full of life and unpredictability

If you can sum up who your characters are in a sentence or two, you’re in trouble. People are complicated, and cartoon characters need to reflect that complexity to be intriguing to the reader. One reason Pogo is fun to read and reread is that the core characters are many-sided. They all have good sides and bad that reveal themselves gradually. The characters are full of life and unpredictability.


Bill Watterson, as quoted in Looking for Calvin and Hobbes: The Unconventional Story of Bill Watterson and His Revolutionary Comic Strip by Nevin Martell. Continuum Intl Pub Group, 2010 p.73, 74

write one true sentence

I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, "Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know."

Ernest Hemmingway, A Moveable Feast. p.23

the meaning of spiritual things

In speaking with the Prophet Joseph once [on the subject to the last days] he traced it from the first down to the last…. He wished me to write something for him on this subject, but I found it a very difficult thing to do. He had to correct me several times…. I wrote it again, and again he said it was not right. It is very difficult to find language to convey the meaning of spiritual things.


John Taylor, Journal of Discourses, 18:330, as quoted in "A Plainer Translation": Joseph Smith's Translation of the Bible, a History and commentary, by Robert J. Matthews. Brigham Young University Press. 1975. p.216

biographical ends

Biographies generally end with death, romances with marriage. I not expecting to die for many years to come, as I am still strong and healthy.


Forty Years Among the Indians: A True Yet Thrilling Narrative of the Author's Experiences Among the Natives. By Daniel W. Jones. Juvenile Instructor, Salt Lake City, UT. 1890. Chapter LV.

what of all this?

Some may ask, "What of all this? There was no one killed; nothing of a blood and thunder character to admire." I will stay to such: just stop reading this book, for it is not of the blood and thunder style, such are written by authors who have never seen what they write about. I am simply telling that which I have seen, known of and taken part in. I cannot help whether it pleases or not. I can only tell it as it occurred, or appeared to me at the time; neither do I make any allowance for lack of memory. Anything that was not impressed sufficiently upon my mind at the time of its occurrence so as to remember the same, I consider not worth relating.


Forty Years Among the Indians: A True Yet Thrilling Narrative of the Author's Experiences Among the Natives. By Daniel W. Jones. Juvenile Instructor, Salt Lake City, UT. 1890. Chapter II.

beauty means truth

By beauty of course I mean the truth, for the one involves the other; it is only the false in art which is ugly, and it is only the false which is immoral.


W.D. Howles, Novel-Writing and Novel-Reading, An Impersonal Explanation, 1899.

Yes, it's hard to write, but it's harder not to.


Carl Van Doren - (1885-1950), U.S. man of letters. In answer to a question put to him by Mary Margaret McBride. Quoted by James Thurber in: Bermudian (Nov. 1950).

The only living works are those which have drained much of the author's own life into them.


Samuel Butler - (1835-1902), English author. Samuel Butler's Notebooks (1951, p. 194).

Good novels are not written by orthodoxy-sniffers, nor by people who are conscience-stricken about their own orthodoxy. Good novels are written by people who are not frightened.


George Orwell - (1903–50), British author. Inside the Whale and Other Essays, "Inside the Whale" (1940).

All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.


F. Scott Fitzgerald - (1896-1940), U.S. author. Letter (undated) to his daughter Frances Scott Fitzgerald (first published in The Crack-Up, ed. by Edmund Wilson, 1945).

I hold any writer sufficiently justified who is himself in love with his theme.


Henry James - (1843-1916), U.S. author. Italian Hours, "Venice" (written 1882; published 1909).

The great thing is to last and get your work done and see and hear and learn and understand; and write when there is something that you know; and not before; and not too damned much after. Let those who want to save the world if you can get to see it clear and as a whole. Then any part you make will represent the whole if it's made truly.


Ernest Hemingway. Death in the Afternoon. Simon & Schuster. 1932. p.278

No matter how good a phrase or a simile he may have if he puts it in where it is not absolutely necessary and irreplaceable he is spoiling his work for egotism. Prose is architecture, not interior decoration, and the Baroque is over.


Ernest Hemingway. Death in the Afternoon. Simon & Schuster. 1932. p.191