I just hammer something half way into shape, throw it up against the wall and see if it sticks… have a look at aftermath… maybe sugar and spice.

(J. Loving, private correspondence)

Doing what the customer wants is a recipe for conservatism and the reduction of humanity to a bunch of “yes” people with no innovation and certainly no improvement.

All the best writers (and philosophers) are clear and coherent. Those who are not are shams and silly children trying to be clever clever for lack of talent.

(Oscar-nominated filmmaker Anthony Howarth, private correspondence)

poets leak internal weather
the outside has less meaning when the inside is open
I like it when words do different jobs to their usual, proper ones. I don’t want to write if I am only prepared to stay on the safe side. There is no growth on that side.

I have my fave writing tools on the table always – black Bic, blue, green Bic, orange felt-tip, also, there’s a yellow felt-tip this week, and I like using a magenta felt-tip, sometimes HB pencils… and a red pencil I keep losing, then it all depends which one is closest to hand when I need to write… so it’s almost Random, but I’d say it’s emotional and aesthetic, too. Like if I was drawing or painting. My notebooks are my best friends, constant. They go back years and are jam-packed with thoughts, ideas, drawings, rough drafts etc. going back, sporadically, to 1973.

I call it MY writing, that’s all. It is MINE. It has to be Mine. I have to make it MINE, make the words MY very own words. I wouldn’t bother doing it if I couldn’t find ways to make the words mine. Like, I’m facing a brick wall built by men, tradition etc. and I find my own ways to dissolve the grout, seep through the cracks, climb over, dig under, go around this ugly, brutish wall. Wall built by dullards. My only tool is the slippery part of me that is very me. Very me speaks my words, not theirs. Very me speaks their words in my own way. Their words – used by me – can become my words.

(Penny Goring, private correspondence )