I’m interested in getting your thoughts about stuff I see and hear, quotes I read, stuff that passes as knowledge – and starting an authorey conversation.
I always thought it just mean to be a radical. Woo! Party! Get drunk and write, you radical party guy! No, it means write with abandon and then edit with austerity. Be flat out crazaaay when you write. Make up words. Express every feeling no matter how embarrassing, then edit it – not to remove that stuff, but to make it legible and poignant.
When CP’s see paragraphs and say it touched them or that they identify with a passage, often it came from this type of abandon that was later refined. I should do it more.
DAN ALATORRE 
15 replies on “What Do YOU Think?”
I bought a keychain with that motto on it in New Orleans. I thought it was a great reminder of my own authorial philosophy: even if it’s shit, get it on the paper. Editing is for later. I’m right there with you.
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Awesome!
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Makes me think: “Write as though no one will ever read it and edit as though your mother will read it.”
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Ha! Maybe!
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I should do it more too. ❤
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I bet everybody feels that way
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It’s definitely when I feel the most vulnerable about what I wrote that I get the most positive feedback from readers. How you’ve shed clarity on this oft-seen quote really speaks to that in me. 🙂 Thanks for the reminder.
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Happy to help. And it’s good that your feedback comes at the time you need it most!
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To me it really depends on voice. If I’m in a POV where the character or narrator is exuberant anyway, all the better. But if they’re more measured, maybe even uptight, it doesn’t help me much to write drunk. I don’t think so anyway – perhaps I’ve never really given it a go. *hurries off to write with abandon*
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Yeah, good point.
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Man, I had that backwards. No wonder the editing was so easy 🙂
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* brandishes drink while peering at MS *
Uhhhhh…
* lifts very heavy eyebrows *
Ahhhhh… looks good to me!
* burps *
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Do you spell superfluous with a ‘ph’? Stupid dictionary.
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Writing drunk is fine. It’s clicking “publish” that’s the problem. So – disconnect from the web first, THEN drink, THEN write. Oh, and make sure a trusted adult is holding your phone.
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Sounds like a plan
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