“If she was going to write a novel, she felt defeated before she began, because someone might be coming along to pick it apart, looking for symbols like The Conch or The Whale, which seemed to have mythic proportions.” — L.L. Barkat Copy Share Image
“Laura thought Bell would have a few things to say to Pynchon. And Laura had a few things to say to Bell, like, How… — L.L. Barkat Copy Share Image
“Her tea basket was still lost, but that didn’t seem to matter now. People used to eat loose tea on long journeys. They’d pack… — L.L. Barkat Copy Share Image
“Had Mary Shelley fretted so? Maybe yes, maybe no. She’d begun her classic work on a dare. Had culled a dream to bring it into being. But it was not lost on Laura that the story might be a prolonged exercise in Shelley’s personal terrors. The subtitle of the work was 'Prometheus Unbound,' and Laura wondered if Shelley herself was… — L.L. Barkat Copy Share
“Tea was more than boiling water. There were decisions to be made and a frame of mind to develop, no matter how imperceptible.” — L.L. Barkat Copy Share Image
“One Bagatelle, and I’ll raise you a novel,” Megan had tweeted back. “Writing for tea? Now that would have been a solution for the… — L.L. Barkat Copy Share Image
“Maybe you didn’t need to know anything special to write a work of fiction. Maybe you didn’t need to delve into some kind of… — L.L. Barkat Copy Share Image
“Writing starts with living. —Rumors of Water: Thoughts on Creativity & Writing” — L.L. Barkat Copy Share Image
“If she was going to write a novel, she felt defeated before she began, because someone might be coming along to pick it apart,… — L.L. Barkat Copy Share Image
“You could use a moth like that as a symbol in a novel, but it was trite, wasn’t it? The old moth-to-the-flame image had… — L.L. Barkat Copy Share Image
“We will need to find people who will provide a safe writing space for us, where criticism comes late and love and delight come… — L.L. Barkat Copy Share Image
“Maybe Laura’s real problem came in admitting this: there was nothing new under the sun. To write a story would be, somehow deep down,… — L.L. Barkat Copy Share Image
