Patrick Wall

@writer-patrickwall.bsky.social

1366 Followers 934 Following

Novelist, lover of words, conversation, and ideas. Musician, creative technologist. Champion of the preposterous and wildly unfeasible. Daily writing quotes. Comments appreciated.

Happy birthday, John Berger, Pulitzer Prize winning author of ‘G’ and ‘Ways of Seeing’, born 5 November 1926 ‘Hope is a contraband passed from hand to hand and story to story.’ –John Berger #Readers #Writers #Books
Happy Birthday, Odysseas Elytis, Nobel Prize–winning Greek poet, born 2 November 1911. ‘You’ll come to learn a great deal if you study the Insignificant in depth.’ – Odysseas Elytis #Poetry #Writers #Books #Greece #NobelPrize #Literature
Happy Birthday, Susanna Clarke, born 1 November 1959. ‘A piece of writing is like a piece of magic. You create something out of nothing’ –Susanna Clarke #Readers #Writers #Books
Happy birthday, John Keats, born 31 October 1795. ‘I want a brighter word than bright.’ –John Keats #Readers #Writers #Books
Happy birthday, Ezra Pound, celebrated poet and critic, born 30 October 1885 ‘Properly, we should read for power. Man reading should be man intensely alive. The book should be a ball of light in one’s hand.’ –Ezra Pound #Readers #Writers #Books
Happy Birthday, Lee Child, best selling creator of Jack Reacher, born 29 October 1954. ‘It’s a kind of Zen question: if you write a book and no one reads it, is it really a book?’ –Lee Child #Readers #Writers #Books
Happy birthday, Evelyn Waugh, author of Decline and Fall, Brideshead Revisited and A Handful of Dust, born 28 October 1903 ‘Don’t analyse yourself. Give the relevant facts and let your readers make their own judgements.’ –Evelyn Waugh #Readers #Writers #Books
Happy birthday, Sylvia Plath, born 27 October 1932 ‘Nothing stinks like a pile of unpublished writing.’ –Sylvia Plath #Readers #Writers #Books
Happy Birthday, Andrew Motion, Poet Laureate and author, born 26 October 1952. ‘Write for tomorrow, not for today.’ –Andrew Motion #Readers #Writers #Books
Happy birthday, Anne Tyler, born 25 October 1941. ‘When I’m working on something, I proceed as if no one else will ever read it.’ –Anne Tyler #Readers #Writers #Books
Happy Birthday, Amor Towles, born 24 October 1964. ‘Early on in the writing, there is often a sentence that pins down a character for me.’ –Amor Towles #Readers #Writers #Books
Happy birthday, Doris Lessing, born 22 October 1919. ‘In the writing process, the more a story cooks, the better.’ –Doris Lessing #Readers #Writers #Books
Happy birthday, Ursula K. Le Guin, born 21 October 1929. ‘t helps to remember that the goal is not to write a masterpiece or a bestseller. The goal is to be able to look at your story and say, Yes. That’s as good as I can make it.’ –Ursula K. Le Guin #Readers #Writers #Books
Happy Birthday, Kate Mosse, born 20 October 1961. ‘Five minutes of writing a day is better than no minutes.’ –Kate Mosse #Readers #Writers #Books
Happy birthday, Arthur Miller, Pulitzer Prize winning dramatist, Born 17 October 1915. ‘Don’t be seduced into thinking that that which does not make a profit is without value.’ –Arthur Miller #Readers #Writers #Books
Happy birthday, Oscar Wilde, born 16 October 1854 ‘Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.’ –Oscar Wilde #Readers #Writers #Books
Happy birthday, P. G. Wodehouse, born 15 October 1881 ‘It has been well said that an author who expects results from a first novel is in a position similar to that of a man who drops a rose petal down the Grand Canyon of Arizona and listens for the echo.’ –P. G. Wodehouse #Readers #Writers #Books
Happy birthday, NoViolet Bulawayo, born 12 October 1981. ‘It’s your story: act like it and write it on your own terms.’ –NoViolet Bulawayo #Readers #Writers #Books
Happy birthday, Elmore Leonard, born 11 October 1925. ‘The line of dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking his nose in.’ –Elmore Leonard #Readers #Writers #Books
Happy birthday, Harold Pinter, Nobel Prize-winning playwright, screenwriter and director, born 10 October 1930. ‘Language in art remains a highly ambiguous transaction, a quicksand, a trampoline, a frozen pool which might give way under you … at any time.’ –Harold Pinter #Readers #Writers #Books
Happy Birthday, Guillermo del Toro, born 9 October 1964. ‘In the end, perfection is just a concept – an impossibility we use to torture ourselves and that contradicts nature.’ –Guillermo del Toro #Readers #Writers #Books
Happy birthday, Thomas Keneally, Booker Prize-winning author of Schindler’s List, born 7 October 1935. ‘It’s the children on the side of the playground who become the dangerous writers.’ –Thomas Keneally #Readers #BlueSkyBooks #Books #WritersOfBlueSky #SkyWriting #BlueskyLit
Happy birthday, Caroline Gordon, award winning novelist and literary critic, born 6 October 1895. ‘A first book often has enough material in it for half a dozen.’ –Caroline Gordon #Readers #BlueSkyBooks #Books #WritersOfBlueSky #SkyWriting
Happy Birthday, Clive Barker, born 5 October 1952. ‘There’s something very healthy about horror fiction being always a little bit on the outside. It’s the wild-dog genre.’ –Clive Barker #Readers #BlueSkyBooks #Books #WritersOfBlueSky #SkyWriting #BlueskyLit #WritingCommunity
Happy birthday Anne Rice, best known for her Vampire Chronicles novels, born 4 October 1941. ‘If you feel blocked, write through it until you feel your creative juices flowing again. Write. Writing is what makes a writer, nothing more and nothing less.’ –Anne Rice #Readers #BlueSkyBooks #Books
Happy birthday, Gore Vidal, author of essays, novels, screenplays, and Broadway plays, born 3 October 1925. ‘Some writers take to drink, others take to audiences.’ –Gore Vidal #Readers #BlueSkyBooks #Books #WritersOfBlueSky
Happy birthday, Graham Greene, born 2 October 1904. ‘One has no talent. I have no talent. It’s just a question of working, of being willing to put in the time.’ –Graham Greene #Readers #BlueSkyBooks #Books #WritersOfBlueSky #SkyWriting #BlueskyLit #WritingCommunity
Happy Birthday, Tim O’Brien, writer, born 1 October 1946. ‘Writing doesn’t get easier with experience. The more you know, the harder it is to write.’ –Tim O’Brien #Readers #BlueSkyBooks #Books #WritersOfBlueSky #SkyWriting #BlueskyLit #WritingCommunity
Happy birthday, Truman Capote, born 30 September 1924. ‘That’s not writing, that’s typing.’ –Truman Capote #Readers #BlueSkyBooks #Books #WritersOfBlueSky #SkyWriting #BlueskyLit #WritingCommunity
Happy birthday, Miguel de Cervantes, author of Don Quixote, born 29 September 1547 ‘Our greatest foes, and whom we must chiefly combat, are within.’ —Miguel de Cervantes #BookTok #authorsoftiktok #writertok #writersoftiktok
Happy birthday, Rosario Ferré, writer, poet and essayist, born 28 September 1938 ‘Death is a woman, and for that reason she’s courageous and just, and never makes distinctions between mortals; she’ll crush the ignorant, the arrogant, and the wise alike under her icy foot’ –Rosario Ferré #writers
Happy birthday, Jim Thompson, author and screenwriter, known for his hard-boiled crime fiction, born 27 September 1906. ‘There are 32 ways to write a story, and I’ve used every one, but there is only one plot – things are not as they seem.’ –Jim Thompson #Readers #BlueSkyBooks #Books #Writers
Happy birthday, William Faulkner, American writer and Nobel Prize laureate, born 25 September 1897. ‘Probably any story that can’t be told in one sentence or at least one paragraph is not worth writing.’ –William Faulkner #Readers #BlueSkyBooks #Books #WritersOfBlueSky #SkyWriting #BlueskyLit
Happy birthday, F. Scott Fitzgerald was born 24 September 1896. ‘Cut out all these exclamation points. An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke.’ —F. Scott Fitzgerald #Readers #BlueSkyBooks #Books #WritersOfBlueSky #SkyWriting #BlueskyLit #WritingCommunity
Happy Birthday, Wesley Chu, New York Times bestselling science fiction author, born 23 September 1976. ‘Set aside time to write and guard those precious minutes like fucking Smaug sitting on top of his piles of gold.’ –Wesley Chu #Readers #BlueSkyBooks #Books #WritersOfBlueSky #SkyWriting #writers
Happy birthday, Fay Weldon, author, essayist and playwright, born 22 September 1931. ‘Novelists… fashioning nets to sustain and support the reader as he falls helplessly through the chaos of his own existence.’ —Fay Weldon #Readers #BlueSkyBooks #Books #WritersOfBlueSky #SkyWriting #BlueskyLit
Happy Birthday, Stephen King, born 21 September 1947. ‘Writing isn’t about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid, or making friends. In the end, it’s about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life, as well.’ –Stephen King #Writers #books
Happy Birthday, George R. R. Martin, born 20 September 1948. ‘Fantasy tastes of habaneros and honey, cinnamon and cloves, rare red meat and wines as sweet as summer. Reality is beans and tofu, and ashes at the end.’ —George R. R. Martin #Readers #BlueSkyBooks #Books #WritersOfBlueSky #SkyWriting
Happy Birthday, William Golding, Booker and Nobel Prize winning author, born 19 September 1911 ‘Novelists do not write as birds sing, by the push of nature. It is part of the job that there should be much routine and some daily stuff on the level of carpentry.’ —William Golding #Readers #BlueSkyBooks #Books #WritersOfBlueSky #SkyWriting #BlueskyLit #WritingCommunity
Happy birthday, Samuel Johnson, English poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer, born 18 September 1709 ‘I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read’ —Samuel Johnson #Readers #BlueSkyBooks #Books #WritersOfBlueSky #SkyWriting
Happy birthday, Ken Kesey, author of ‘One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest’, born 17 September 1935. ‘Doing magic, you not only have to be able to do a trick, you have to have a little story line to go with it. And writing is essentially a trick.’ —Ken Kesey #Readers #BlueSkyBooks #Books #Writers
Happy birthday, Julia Donaldson, children’s author and creator of the Gruffalo, born 16 September 1948. ‘The hard part for me is not getting the idea, it is turning it into a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end.’ —Julia Donaldson #Readers #BlueSkyBooks #Books #WritersOfBlueSky #SkyWriting
Happy birthday, Agatha Christie, born 15 September 1890. ‘Imagination is a good servant, and a bad master.’ —Agatha Christie. #Readers #BlueSkyBooks #Books #WritersOfBlueSky #SkyWriting
Happy birthday, Roald Dahl, born 13 September 1916. ‘Don’t gobblefunk around with words.’ —Roald Dahl #Readers #BlueSkyBooks #Books #WritersOfBlueSky #SkyWriting
Happy birthday, H. L. Mencken, journalist, essayist, magazine editor, satirist, critic of American life and culture, and scholar of American English, born 12 September 1880 ‘There are no dull subjects. There are only dull writers.’ —H. L. Mencken #Readers #BlueSkyBooks #Books #WritersOfBlueSky
Happy birthday, O. Henry, prestigious short story writer, born William Sydney Porter, on 11 September 1862 ‘There are stories in everything. I’ve got some of my best yarns from park benches, lampposts, and newspaper stands.’ #Readers #BlueSkyBooks #Books #WritersOfBlueSky #SkyWriting #BlueskyLit
Happy birthday, Leo Tolstoy, author of War & Peace & Anna Karenina, born 9 September 1828 ‘To say that a work of art is good, but incomprehensible to the majority of men, is the same as saying of some kind of food that it is very good but that most people can’t eat it’ —Leo Tolstoy #Readers #Books
Happy Birthday, Michael Frayn, playwright and novelist, born 8 September 1933. ‘Mathematics becomes very odd when you apply it to people. One plus one can add up to so many different sums.’ —Michael Frayn #Readers #BlueSkyBooks #Books #WritersOfBlueSky #SkyWriting #BlueskyLit #WritingCommunity
Happy Birthday, Jennifer Egan, Pulitzer Prize winning author of A Visit From The Goon Squad, born 7 September 1962. ‘But a story was invisible, infinite; it had no size or shape. Information. It could fill the world or fit inside a fingernail.’ —Jennifer Egan #Readers #WritersOfBlueSky #Books
Happy birthday, John Cage, composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher, and artist, born 5 September 1912. ‘Don’t try to create and analyse at the same time. They’re different processes.’ —John Cage #Readers #BlueSkyBooks #Books #WritersOfBlueSky #SkyWriting #BlueskyLit #WritingCommunity