1) Don’t start to write before you have a strong sense of the whole composition, unless you are writing a lyrical text or a poem.
2)
Don’t search for perfection and symmetry — it will kill the life in the work.
3)
Obey the rules of point of view and perspective and see the world through your characters’ eyes — but it is permissible to break this rule with inventiveness.
4)
Like van Gogh or the neo-Expressionist painters, show your brushstrokes! The reader will enjoy observing the making of the novel if it is made a minor part of the story.
5)
Try to identify the accidental beauty where neither the mind conceived of nor the hand intended any. The writer in me and the painter in me are getting to be friendlier every day. That’s why I am now planning novels with pictures and picture books with texts and stories.
Keep tuned-in to this blog for a conversation between the resident painter and the resident writer and watch out for my new website which is in the process of being redesigned.
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