{"author":"Edward Fahey","author_id":"Edward+Fahey","total_quotes":15,"quotes":[{"text":"As so often happens in my strange writing process, after weeks of distraction; of not thinking about the book at all; yesterday I started writing before the sun was up, or coffee was made. Whipped out a whole chapter of probably six or seven separate scenes in less than two hours. Now today, the whole story has slipped into a deeper level of knowing and connections than has (as far as I know, anyway) ever really been written about before. This is much as my experience was with Ailana, when I kept slipping into deeper and deeper gears. Bringing forth insights I myself had never learned or suspected.","author":"Edward Fahey","tags":["writers","writers-on-writing","writers-on-writing-books","writing"],"id":987,"author_id":"Edward+Fahey"},{"text":"The back of the church was raised up from the ground. Tossed in among its supports were what looked like moldering bones.My heart ached so much for these poor souls, neglected even after death, I turned away to head back, but managed only a few burdened steps.I drew up abruptly and froze.An old, worn marker, standing off by itself, grabbed at my heart.It was Edgar Alan Poe.He fit in so perfectly there. Maybe I did, too. His sorrow and pain ate through me as I stood, head lowered. Can’t even death let us step away from our darkness? It was like he was scratching a warning into the dirt with his finger, and meant it specifically for me. Don’t wait around for sermons to wash you clean, he seemed to say, for death or drugs to close your eyes. God won’t come roaring in with fresh troops to drive away the darkness we’ve walled our own souls up in. He didn’t put us there; we’ll have to dig ourselves out.I looked at my own life as I stood there, feeling buried alive, like some of his characters.But unlike his characters I had caught a flash of hope.","author":"Edward Fahey","tags":["darkness","death","depression","hope","hopelessness","literature","poe","quotes"],"id":5857,"author_id":"Edward+Fahey"},{"text":"Darkness crept through. Shadows pried at doors, teased dull edges of recollections that never quite took hold. Memories that would have shriveled under the blinding sun of daylight. And reason.","author":"Edward Fahey","tags":["fiction","literary-fiction","literary","literature","moody-writing"],"id":142367,"author_id":"Edward+Fahey"},{"text":"Life is about trying to find our ways back to our one shared soul. When we’re looking out at the stars, we’re looking into ourselves.","author":"Edward Fahey","tags":["eternity","spirit","theosophy"],"id":169052,"author_id":"Edward+Fahey"},{"text":"I miss you so much in these wee morning hours,when the depth of the night sets my spirit free.When the forest is dark, and there doesn’t have to be anything in the worldbut the beauty I pull out of it.I miss you throughout the day,as I come across glories and wonders that could easily overwhelm me,but just dull because you’re not here to enjoy them.","author":"Edward Fahey","tags":["fine-literature","grief","grieving","longing","longing","love","mourning","romance"],"id":178210,"author_id":"Edward+Fahey"},{"text":"Ancient philosophers and spiritual teachers were explorers. They wanted us to be as well. They thought we should understand this physical world, but not get stuck here. For thousands of years we have shared their insights, over-analyzed and repeated their words; quoting and re-translating until all meaning has been lost. These great minds, great souls, great beings sought to be jumping off points, not merely the originators of emptied out and desiccated clichés. They wanted to be doorways, not doorstops.","author":"Edward Fahey","tags":["great-teachers","great-teachings","spirit","spirituality","theosophy"],"id":214372,"author_id":"Edward+Fahey"},{"text":"One thing an early-on writer has to learn, is to be comfortable with and responsive to critique. When five people in a group tell you this chapter sucks; don’t snap back at them with, “Sure, but it gets better in another 6 or 7 chapters!”Listen. – Thank them. – Consider.They can look from a fresh perspective, and catch things that you might be too close to see.But, you will also learn along the way that not everyone in a group of relative amateurs themselves, is going to catch everything, and there will be a few who seem to never understand much of anything.Some will always want paragraphs chopped down to explosive missiles of passion, while others are more used to long composite paragraphs that I myself find impossible to wade through.You may, once you have hit your full stride and power, feel comfortable telling a few of them, “Look. This isn’t a diner. I don’t take orders: ‘I’m gluten intolerant; he can’t do salt; she’s allergic to peanuts ...’“If what I offer is a salad bar, then No; I am not going to fry you up a cheesesteak!","author":"Edward Fahey","tags":["fiction","novel-writing","novels","writers","writers-groups","writing"],"id":234043,"author_id":"Edward+Fahey"},{"text":"After finishing 1st draft of a novel, I have the characters, dialogue, scenes, and a plotline. I used to think this meant I knew where the story was going, and what the book was about.I have learned over the years, this ain’t so.As I work through its 2nd draft, characters start to nudge each other. The story itself takes its first soft and shallow breath, and one could imagine he hears a little bit of a heartbeat. Passions deepen, and emotional threads start to weave through what had earlier just been little more than a sequence of events.On the 3rd run through, the characters stand tall. Some break free of my earlier concepts of what they were all about, what they wanted, how they related to each other, and where they were going.From then on, THEY set the pace, and I do my best to honor them in becoming what THEY choose to be.From then on, my friends; we have a story!By the end of the 3rd draft, I have enough of an idea of where the characters are going, and how their passions empower the story, or tear it apart, that I can start cutting away, and cutting away, anything that isn’t that.Until we reach the point where there is not a single word left anywhere in the book, that isn’t a vital, dynamic, organic contributor to the living whole.","author":"Edward Fahey","tags":["fiction-writing","novelists","novels","writers","writers-on-writing","writers-on-writing-books","writing","writing-process"],"id":238330,"author_id":"Edward+Fahey"},{"text":"I keep being told that my writing is getting better and better. - Now, at first I am thrilled by that, but then I think, Isn't everybody's? Do some authors grow cozy with their own style, and stay there?I think of writing fiction as an art form. As such, it's a constant exploration of new and developing ideas. If any of my books were much like my others, I don't think I'd even bother to write them.","author":"Edward Fahey","tags":["fiction-novel","fiction-writing","novels","writing"],"id":284901,"author_id":"Edward+Fahey"},{"text":"Decades after little Colleen’s death, my sister Kathy still loves her daughter dearly. Colleen was born with cerebral palsy. She died in Kath’s arms in a rocking chair at the age of six. They were listening to a music box that looked very much like a smiling pink bunny.The opening quote in this book, “I will love you forever, but I’ll only miss you for the rest of my life,” is from Kath’s nightly prayers to her child.Colleen couldn’t really talk or walk very well, but loved untying my mother’s tennis shoes and then laughing. When Mom died decades later we sent her off in tennis shoes so Colleen would have something to untie in Heaven.In the meantime, Dad had probably been taking really good care of her up there. He must have been aching to hug her for all of her six years on earth.Mom’s spirit comes back to play with great grandchildren she’d never met or had a chance to love while she was still – I almost said “among the living.” In my family, though, the dead don’t always stay that way. You can be among the living without technically being alive. Mom comes back to play, but Dad shows up only in emergencies. They are both watching over their loved ones.“The Mourning After” is dedicated to all those we have had the joy of loving before they’ve slipped away to the other side.It then celebrates the joy of re-unions.","author":"Edward Fahey","tags":["after-death","death","ghosts","literary-fiction","literature","loss","magic-realism","survival-of-spirit"],"id":291428,"author_id":"Edward+Fahey"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":15,"pages":2,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}