I've written only two novels, but they're both long ones, and they each took a decade to write.
Interpretation
Creating art can be a long and arduous process that requires patience and dedication.
Donna Tartt's statement highlights the time and effort involved in the art of novel writing, suggesting that quality often takes precedence over quantity. By emphasizing that her two novels took a decade to complete, she underscores the depth and thought that goes into crafting a meaningful and intricate story, illustrating that great works are not born from haste but from perseverance and commitment to the craft.
In practice
During a speech at a literary festival, one might say, 'As Donna Tartt once noted about her lengthy writing process, true artistry often requires years of dedication.'
Does such a thing as 'the fatal flaw,' that showy dark crack running down the middle of a life, exist outside literature? I used to think it didn't. Now I think it does. And I think that mine is this: a morbid longing for the picturesque at all costs.
Caring too much for objects can destroy you. Only—if you care for a thing enough, it takes on a life of its own, doesn’t it? And isn’t the whole point of things—beautiful things—that they connect you to some larger beauty?
But sometimes, unexpectedly, grief pounded over me in waves that left me gasping; and when the waves washed back, I found myself looking out over a brackish wreck which was illumined in a light so lucid, so heartsick and empty, that I could hardly remember that the world had ever been anything but dead.
And the flavor of Pippa's kiss--bittersweet and strange--stayed with me all the way back uptown, swaying and sleepy as I sailed home on the bus, melting with sorrow and loveliness, a starry ache that lifted me up above the windswept city like a kite: my head in the rainclouds, my heart in the sky.
Does such a thing as "the fatal flaw," that showy dark crack running down the middle of a life, exist outside literature?
The books I loved in childhood - the first loves - I’ve read so often that I’ve internalized them in some really essential way: they are more inside me now than out.
Failure in the theater is more dramatic and uglier than any other form of writing. It costs so much, you feel so guilty.
The beautiful is as useful as the useful." He added after a moment’s silence, "Perhaps more so.
Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn. They teach you there's a boundary line to music. But, man, there's no boundary line to art.
No movie featuring either Harry Dean Stanton or M. Emmet Walsh in a supporting role can be altogether bad.
The root of any film project for me is this inner need to express something. What nurtures this root and makes it grow into a tree is the script. What makes the tree bear flowers and fruit is the directing.
Every time I hear a recording I've made, I hear all kinds of things I could improve or things I should have done. There's always so much more to be done in music. It's so vast.
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