WRITING OR NOT

I don't want to just mess with your head. I want to mess with your life. I want you to miss appointments, burn dinner, skip homework. I want you to tell your wife to take that moonlight stroll on the beach at Waikiki with the resort tennis pro while you read a few more chapters. Stephen King
A word is a bud trying to become a twig. How can one not dream while writing? It's the pen which dreams. The blank page gives the right to dream. Gaston Bachelard (1884-1962)
All I'm fit for is writing. I'm not fit for real work and writing doesn't require any. Russell Baker
Three rules to writing fiction. No one knows what they are. Somerset Maugham
A word is dead when it's said. I say it begins to live that day. Emily Dickenson
When ideas fail, a word comes in to save the situation. Goethe
Ask a working writer what he thinks of critics is like asking a lamppost how it feels about dogs. Christopher Hampton
I don't give a damn for a man who can spell a word only one way. Mark Twain
I live on good soup, not on fine words. Moliere
Let us celebrate the occasion with wine and sweet words. Plautus
Writing is dreadful Labor yet less dreadful than Idleness. Thos Carlyle (1795-1881)
To hold a pen is to be at war. Voltaire
Words strain, crack, and sometime break under the burden. T S Eliot
Words, words, mere words, no matter from the heart. William Shakespeare (Troilus and Cressida)
Words are man's most powerful drug. Rudyard Kipling
Difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense. Tom Clancy
Do universities stifle writers? They don't stifle enough of them. Flannery O'Connor
No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. Robert Frost
Copy from one is plagiarism; copy from two is research. Wilson Mizner
Many bestsellers could be prevented by a good teacher. Flannery O'Connor
First draft of anything is crud. Ernest Hemingway
I'm not a very good writer, but I'm an excellent rewriter. James Michener
Don't wait for inspiration. Go after it with a club. Jack London
Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep. Scott Adams
ONCE UPON A TIME

Identify the book these quotes are from.
1. I'm not very big. They use me for switching trains in the yard. I've never been over the mountain.
2. Help! A heffalump!
3. Mrs. Darling put her hand to her heart and cried, Why can't you remain like this forever?
4. The sun didn't shine. It was too wet to play. So we sat in the house all that cold cold wet day.
5. Now, my dears, you may go to the fields or down the lane but don't go into McGregor's garden. Your father had an accident there.
6. Arriving in Boston they were too tired to fly further. A nice public garden pond had an island in it.
7. If you were a fish, said his mother, I'd become a fisherman and fish for you.
8. Lucy, frightened but curious, looked over her shoulder. Between dark tree trunks she saw her open closet door.
Don't know? Click here

Starter Questions

What do you mean you haven't _______ since the LAST time??
Well, okay, that's the GOOD news. What's the BAD news??
What was that noise in the kitchen???
Why is Bill running down the street??
How many times have I told you not to
Tell me, when WAS the last time you
Are you SURE this is the way to
Oh NO! And what did HE say??
Oh NO! And what did SHE say??
Well, why DIDN'T you 

Knock, knock.
Who's there?
____________ ___________
Yeah, _______________?

RULES OF RECOGNITION

Don't be redundant; don't use more words than needed; 
     it's highly superfluous.
Understatement: always absolute best way to put forth earthshaking ideas.
Use the apostrophe in it's proper place. Omit it when its not needed.
Eliminate quotations. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, 
     "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."
Verbs HAS to agree with subjects.
Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
And don't start a sentence with a conjunction.
It's wrong to ever split an infinitive.
Avoid cliches like the plague. They're old hat.
Also, always avoid annoying alliteration.
Be more or less specific.
Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are (usually) unnecessary.
Also too, never, ever use repetitive redundancies.
No sentence fragments.
Contractions aren't necessary and shouldn't be used.
Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
NEVER generalize.
Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
Don't use no double negatives.
Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
One-word sentences? Eliminate.
Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
The passive voice is to be ignored.
Eliminate commas, that are, not necessary.
Enclose parenthetical words in commas.
Never use a big word when a diminutive one would suffice.
Kill all exclamation points!!!
Use words correctly, irregardless of how others use them.
If you hear it once you hear it 1000 times:
     Resist hyperbole. Not one writer in a million can use it correctly.
Puns are for children, not groan readers.
Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
Even if a mixed metaphor sings it should be derailed.
Who needs rhetorical questions?
Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
Proofread carefully to see if you any words out