Hamish Low

"...I discovered is that the best technique is none at all. I never feel that I must adhere to any particular manner of approach. I try to remain open and flexible, ready to turn with the wind or with the current of thought. That’s my stance, my technique, if you will, to be flexible and alert, to use whatever I think good at the moment...."

~ Henry Miller in The Paris Review No. 28

All credit due to the amazing Ira Glass & David Shiyang Liu

http://vimeo.com/24715531

"Let no man jump to the conclusion that (he) must take is Ph.D. in ecology before he can 'see' his country. On the contrary, the Ph.D. may become as callous as an undertaker to the mysteries at which he officiates. Like all real treasures of the mind, perception can be split into infinitely small fractions which losing its quality. The weeds in a city lot convey the same lessons as the redwoods; the farmer may see in his cow-pasture what may not be vouchsafed to the scientist adventuring in the South Seas. Perception, in short, cannot be purchased with either learned degrees or dollars; it grows at hom as weel as abroad, and he who has a little may use it to good advantage as he who has much. As a search for perception, the recreational stampede is footless and unnecessary."

from The Upshot in Sketches from Here and There by Aldo Leopold.

"There are some things people avoid saying in interviews because they sound pompous or sentimental or too mystical. I have never separated the writing of poetry from prayer....I felt this sweetness of melancholy, of a sense of mortality, or rather of immortality, a sense of gratitude both for what you feel is a gift and for the beauty of the earth, the beauty of life around us. When that’s forceful in a young writer, it can make you cry. It’s just clear tears; it’s not grimacing or being contorted, it’s just a flow that happens. The body feels it is melting into what it has seen. This continues in the poet. It may be repressed in some way, but I think we continue in all our lives to have that sense of melting, of the “I” not being important. That is the ecstasy. It doesn’t happen as much when you get older.....It’s not that mystic. Ultimately, it’s what Yeats says: “Such a sweetness flows into the breast that we laugh at everything and everything we look upon is blessed.” That’s always there. It’s a benediction, a transference. It’s gratitude, really. The more of that a poet keeps, the more genuine his nature. I’ve always felt that sense of gratitude. I’ve never felt equal to it in terms of my writing, but I’ve never felt that I was ever less than that....."

Derek Walcott in The Paris Review, The Art of Poetry No. 37

"We alter the atmospheric makeup of the entire world: half of us pretend it’s not happening, the other half immediately start looking for new machines that will reverse it. This is how empires work, particularly when they have started to decay. Denial, displacement, anger, fear."

~ Paul Kingsnorth
http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/6599

Lisa Gerrard discusses the music for Samsara
http://www.barakasamsara.com/updates/lisa-gerrard-discusses-music-samsara

Interviewer - You’re known for your multi-narrative approach to screenwriting. Is there a reason you always go with this format?
Guillermo Arriaga - Chekhov used to say ‘you write what you can, not what you want’ and, you know, first I have ADD, which is more or less the way I think. Second, telling stories in a disorderly way is the way we tell stories, naturally. I don’t know why some critics in their ridiculous way say that this is artificial. I have never in my life, never, listened to someone tell his story in real life in three acts.

Guillermo Arriaga - Interview
Cinema Blend- 17/09/09

"I take for granted that for the imaginative writer, the exercise of the imagination is part of the basic process of coping with reality, just as actors need to act all the time to make up for some deficiency in their sense of themselves....I know that if I don’t write, say on holiday, I begin to feel unsettled and uneasy, as I gather people do who are not allowed to dream."

"Imagination is the shortest route between any two conceivable points."

~ J.G. Ballard in The Art of Fiction No. 85 - The Paris Review

Literature and Latte have kindly released a fully functional native Linux beta version of Scrivener. Fully revolutionises my writing process.

Focuswriter is also an indispensible and elegant piece of software...

"One of the motives for being an artist is to recreate a condition where you're actually out of your depth, where you're uncertain, no longer controlling yourself, yet you're generating something, like surfing as opposed to digging a tunnel. Tunnel-digging activity is necessary, but what artists like, if they still like what they're doing, is the surfing"

~ Brian Eno ("Aurora Musicalis". ArtForum Magazine. 24:10. 1986)