More Truth, poem found in Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

Did you ever purchase a used book and find that it included some underlined passages? This used to annoy me — until today, when I was looking for inspiration and picked up Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut. I flipped open the book to page 41 and found an underlined passage that read like a poem (maybe I was just in the right mood). Here it is:

MORE TRUTH
An underlined passage from Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut (Delta, 1963), page 41

The more truth
we have to work with,
the richer we become.

NOTE: If you’ve found a poem in an underlined passage from a book, send it to silver@silverbirchpress.com, along with the publisher, copyright date, and page number, and a one-paragraph bio, and we may feature it on our blog.

Happy Birthday, Flannery O’Connor

Today we celebrate the birth of one of the all-time greatest of the great writers — Flannery O’Connor, born in Savannah, Georgia, on March 25, 1925. Author of two novels — Wise Blood (1952), which she holds on her lap in the photo above, and The Violent Bear It Away (1960) — and 32 short stories, O’Connor created a lasting body of work in her short life (she died 50 years ago — in 1964 at age 39).

Kurt Vonnegut said of her, “The greatest American short story writer of my generation was Flannery O’Connor. She broke practically every one of my [writing] rules but the first. Great writers tend to do that.” (For the record, Vonnegut’s first rule of writing is: “Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.” Read the complete list at this link.)

Here’s a favorite Flannery O’Connor quote: “I often ask myself what makes a story work, and what makes it hold up as a story, and I have decided that it is probably some action, some gesture of a character that is unlike any other in the story, one which indicates where the real heart of the story lies. This would have to be an action or a gesture which was both totally right and totally unexpected; it would have to be one that was both in character and beyond character; it would have to suggest both time and eternity.”

Kurt Vonnegut’s Rejection Letter from Atlantic Monthly

In 1949, Kurt Vonnegut sent three writing samples to Atlantic Monthly — hoping for publication or a writing assignment. Instead, he received the following letter:

Dear Mr. Vonnegut,

We have been carrying out our usual summer house-cleaning of the manuscripts on our anxious bench and in the file, and among them I find the three papers which you have shown me as samples of your work. I am sincerely sorry that no one of them seems to us well adapted for our purpose. Both the account of the bombing of Dresden and your article, “What’s a Fair Price for Golden Eggs?” have drawn commendation although neither one is quite compelling enough for final acceptance.

Our staff continues fully manned so I cannot hold out the hope of an editorial assignment, but I shall be glad to know that you have found a promising opening elsewhere.

Faithfully yours,
Edward Weeks

From one of the rejected writing samples (‘account of the bombing in Dresden”), Vonnegut developed his masterwork Slaughterhouse-Five. Toiling away at a variety of jobs (newspaper bureau, General Electric public relations department, Saab dealership) to support his large (and extended) family (six children), 20 years transpired between the Atlantic Monthly rejection and the publication of Slaughterhouse-Five (Delacorte, 1969). Modern Library has ranked the book as the18th greatest novel of the 20th century.

Photo: A first edition of Slaughterhouse-Five issued in 1969, when Vonnegut was still using “Jr.” Signed first editions of the novel currently sell for around $8,000. See this link.

Thoughts on Writing by Kurt Vonnegut

I am self-taught. I have no theories about writing that might help others. When I write, I simply become what I seemingly must become.” KURT VONNEGUT, Welcome to the Monkey House

ILLUSTRATION: Kurt Vonnegut self-portrait

Happy Birthday, Kurt Vonnegut (born 11/11/22)

Novelists…our power is patience. We have discovered that writing allows even a stupid person to seem halfway intelligent, if only that person will write the same thought over and over again, improving it just a little bit each time. It is a lot like inflating a blimp with a bicycle pump. Anybody can do it. All it takes is time.” KURT VONNEGUT

Growing Your Soul, quote by Kurt Vonnegut

“Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow…Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.”

KURT VONNEGUT, Man Without a Country

Kurt Vonnegut and Character Development

Every character should want something, even if it’s only a glass of water.  KURT VONNEGUT

Photo: CelloPics

8 Writing Tips from Kurt Vonnegut

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things — reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a Sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them — in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To hell with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

Happy Birthday, Flannery O’Connor

Today we celebrate the birth of one of the all-time greatest of the great writers — Flannery O’Connor, born in Savannah, Georgia, on March 25, 1925. Author of two novels — Wise Blood (1952), which she holds on her lap in the photo at right, and The Violent Bear It Away (1960) — and 32 short stories, O’Connor created a lasting body of work in her short life (she died in 1964 at age 39).

Kurt Vonnegut said of her, “The greatest American short story writer of my generation was Flannery O’Connor. She broke practically every one of my rules but the first. Great writers tend to do that.” (For the record, Vonnegut’s first rule of writing is: “Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.” Read the complete list at this link.)

Here’s one of our favorite Flannery O’Connor quotes: “I often ask myself what makes a story work, and what makes it hold up as a story, and I have decided that it is probably some action, some gesture of a character that is unlike any other in the story, one which indicates where the real heart of the story lies. This would have to be an action or a gesture which was both totally right and totally unexpected; it would have to be one that was both in character and beyond character; it would have to suggest both time and eternity.”

Happy Birthday, Mark Twain

Today marks the 177th anniversary of Mark Twain’s birth. Born on November 30, 1835, Twain is considered a writer’s writer — in the same league as Shakespeare, Dickens, and Cervantes — an author that both Ernest Hemingway and Kurt Vonnegut considered the greatest of the greats. (Vonnegut even named his son Mark after the venerable author.) William Faulkner called him “the father of American literature.”

To celebrate Mark Twain’s birthday, let’s hear from the master himself — and read his advice about writing.

WRITING ADVICE FROM MARK TWAIN

(author of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), and scores of other novels, memoirs, essays, and additional literary works)

“Writing is easy. All you have to do is cross out the wrong words.”

“The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.”

 “Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities…”

 “A successful book is not made of what is in it, but what is left out of it.”

 “…use plain, simple language, short words, and brief sentences…don’t let fluff and flowers and verbosity creep in…a wordy, diffuse, flowery habit, once fastened upon a person, is as hard to get rid of as any other vice.”

 “Don’t say the old lady screamed. Bring her on and let her scream.”

“The test of any good fiction is that you should care something for the characters; the good to succeed, the bad to fail.”

 “One should never use exclamation points in writing. It is like laughing at your own joke.”

“When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don’t mean utterly, but kill most of them – then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when they are close together. They give strength when they are far apart.”

 “The time to begin writing an article is when you have finished it to your satisfaction. By that time you begin to clearly and logically perceive what it is you really want to say.”

“Write what you know.”

 “To get the right word in the right place is a rare achievement …Anybody can have ideas – the difficulty is to express them without squandering a quire of paper on an idea that ought to be reduced to one glittering paragraph.”