Two very simple rules: _x000D_ A. You don't have to write. _x000D_ B. You can't do anything else _x000D_ The rest comes of itself.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of commitment to writing, suggesting that if you don't write, you will not achieve anything.
Raymond Chandler's quote highlights the duality of writing; one must dedicate themselves fully to the act of writing while also accepting that the writing process itself can be liberating and self-guiding. By stating that you don't have to write while simultaneously reinforcing that doing nothing else leads to a lack of progress, Chandler speaks to the necessity of balancing discipline and freedom in the creative process.
In practice
In a writing workshop, to motivate participants to put pen to paper.
Undoubtedly the stories about them [hard-boiled detectives] had a fantastic element. Such things happened, but not so rapidly, nor to so close-knit a group of people, nor within so narrow a frame of logic. This was inevitable because the demand was for constant action; if you stopped to think you were lost. When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand.
There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge.
Organized crime is the dirty side of the sharp dollar.
When in doubt, have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand.
The flood of print has turned reading into a process of gulping rather than savoring.
If my books had been any worse, I should not have been invited to Hollywood, and if they had been any better, I should not have come.
It's OK to quote from your past. But I'm more interested in quoting from my present and pointing towards the future.
This is the wisdom: If we bless our bodies, they will bless us.
Do a few things at mastery versus many things at mediocrity.
I am just a poor boy, though my story's seldom told, and I have squandered my resistance, for a pocket full of mumbles, such are promises. All lies in jest, still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest...la-la-la-la-la-la-la-lala-la-la-la-la...
"Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before," Bokonon tells us. "He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way."
My turn shall also come: I sense the spreading of a wing.
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