Advice from Raymond Chandler

Came across these words of wisdom from the late (great) Raymond Chandler. Chandler is talking about writing but, substitute playing for writing or musician for writer and it still makes a lot of sense.

Lance.

1. A writer who is afraid to overreach himself is as useless as a general who is afraid to be wrong.

2. Technique alone is never enough. You have to have passion. Technique alone is just an embroidered potholder… The moment a man begins to talk about technique that’s proof that he is fresh out of ideas.

3. The most durable thing in writing is style, and style is the single most valuable investment a writer can make with his time. It [style] is a projection of personality and you have to have a personality before you can project it. It is the product of emotion and perception.

4. The challenge is to write about real things magically.

5. The more you reason the less you create.

6. Don’t ever write anything you don’t like yourself and if you do like it, don’t take anyone’s advice about changing it.

7. I am a writer, and there comes a time when that which I write has to belong to me, has to be written alone and in silence, with no one looking over my shoulder, no one telling me a better way to write it. It doesn’t have to be great writing, it doesn't even have to be terribly good. It just has to be mine.

Raymond Chandler.