“I don’t actually look for inspiration. I look for ways to recoup the
joy of writing when that joy is lost to me. Whenever I find myself stuck
or just without any ideas, it’s because I seem to have forgotten how
incredibly fun it is to mess around with words. So to remind myself, I
read. But not just anything. I have to read fiction that is
exuberant—not in content but style. Writers who howl on the page so
loudly, you can hear them for miles. Barry Hannah and Nabokov, Flannery
O’Connor and Angela Carter. Jose Saramago and Denis Johnson. Cormac
McCarthy. Faulkner. Joy Williams. Annie Proulx and Nicholson Baker.
Writers whose work feels alive and fresh and a little nuts, so that
before long, I'll start to feel more alive, too. Alive to possibility,
which is generally when I start typing.”
Fiona Maazel, on Writers Recommend
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