Tipsy Tuesday

I'm in the process of reading Stephen King's non-fiction look at the horror industry, Danse Macabre. It's insightful and full of dry humor. And has some darn good tips.

Here's what I've gleaned so far:

"What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work and study, a constant process of honing."

"Discipline and constant work are the whetstones upon which the dull knife of talent is honed until it becomes sharp enough, hopefully, to cut through even the toughest meat and gristle. No writer, painter, or actor--no artist--is ever handed a sharp knife (although a few people are handed almighty big ones; the name we give to the artist with the big knife is "genius"), and we hone with varying degrees of zeal and aptitude."

"To be successful, the artist in any field has to be in the right place at the right time. The right time is in the lap of the gods, but any mother's son or daughter can work his/her way to the right place and wait."

"Refining talent is merely a matter of exercise. If you work out with weights for 15 minutes a day over the course of ten years, you're gonna get muscles. If you write for an hour and a half a day for ten years, you're gonna turn into a good writer. But, I hasten to add, only if you have the talent there to begin with."

"Whenever I run into someone who expresses a feeling along the lines of "I don't read fantasy, or go to any of those movies; none of it's real," I feel a kind of sympathy. They simply can't lift the weight of fantasy. The muscles of the imagination have grown too weak."

Good stuff, eh? And I'm not even halfway through yet...