"I am not able, and I do not want, completely to abandon the world-view that I acquired in childhood. So long as I remain alive and well I shall continue to feel strongly about prose style, to love the surface of the earth, and to take pleasure in solid objects and scraps of useless information. It is no use trying to suppress that side of myself."
- George Orwell, Why I Write
I must confess that I checked this book out because I confused my Georges and thought that this was the one who was a woman writing under a man's name. Turns out, that is George Eliot and this is the George who wrote 1984. In my defense, there is also a George Sand who was a woman too. So it seems that George is a popular first name for many authors, male and female. But since I checked out the book, I read the essay of interest anyway. I do not understand the politics that were riveting in his day, but I still found a gem or two for my quote collection about writing.
"All writers are vain, selfish and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery. Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some (instinct) whom one can neither resist nor understand."
- George Orwell, Why I Write
Ah yes. This describes my experience so far with noveling. But still, one of my smallest joys in life is a true-in-my-life, well-written paragraph.
P.S. I also rose at 5 am today, despite staying up until 10 am last night trying to catch up. Yesterday ended with 531. This is why I am now snoozy at 4:26 pm.
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