Opium's Network of Writers Experiment Needs You! by Todd Zuniga estimated reading time 1:26

While publishing Opium over the last seven years, all kinds of hare-brained ideas have popped into my head, but the latest is my favorite of all time, and I'd like to invite you (and every write you know) to participate. We're putting together a series of quotes about what authors have learned from other authors (or other sources)—something another writer once said to you that's really stuck in your head and encouraged or influenced your work. Mine, for instance is: "I write one story at a time. It's my way, it's not the only way." --Tobias Wolff. While my quote came from an e-mail exchange nine years ago, yours could be something that occurred while reading an author's work, from having a verbal exchange, or from something they said while teaching at an MFA program. Anything really. So give it a shot! Write a sentence or two on what you learned from another writer and send it to us here or here: opiumwritersexperiment@gmail.com. The goal is to create a sort of "What I Learned" network that we'll be featuring over a sixteen-page section in Opium7, which will hit in October 2008. The goal is to be succinct, a one or two sentence quote. You'll have a back story for your quote, but resist the urge, and just spill what can fit into the quotation marks. And because of the network-based idea of this (we want to get gobs of writers involved), after you have your quote, do the daring thing and chase down the writer you're quoting, even if they're hard to find. Invite them to do the same (trust us on this, so far the response has been amazing). Now send us a quote, and pass this on to every writer you know! Todd Zuniga is Opium's founding editor, and the president of Opium for the Arts. His fiction has appeared in print and online. He lives in Brooklyn.

Ashok Niyogi 5.1.2008 a Bengali poet, from Kolkata, India told me in 1973,.... "The century is going to end, Hurry up now" The poet was Subhash Mukhopadhyay and he had great belief in my poetry. Deborah Floyd 7.7.2008 Rodin told Rilke, "Don't wait passively for inspiration, go out and be a hardworking craftsman..." I heard it from the poet Galway Kinnell in the late 80s and have been working like a dog ever since! Lin Marie deVincent 7.10.2008 "It is difficult to get the news from poems, yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there." Wiliam Carlos Williams Disa 7.11.2008 "if you never ride 30mph, you will never ride 30mph" Dave Grigsby~ bike shop owner/ cycling coach for Lindesy Wilson College, Columbia, Kentucky. A truism if ever there was one. Particularly relevant to my recent experience marathon training and "racing"- of which there has been much blogging about... Bourbon 7.13.2008 A teacher of mine at SFSU, Dan Langton, said, "A story is finished when it is published." He also had, or has, a head full of statistics which can make one worry about progress. He still uses a typewriter. John Reed 7.17.2008 O.P. Reed: "Nobody cares what's in your noodle." Timothy Gager 7.17.2008 A good friend and writer told me, "There are no shortcuts in learning how to write." Josh Maday 7.17.2008 "Often, in order to get a first draft written, you have to give yourself permission to fail." Steve Finbow 7.18.2008 James Salter's “The secret of making [art] is simple: Discard everything that is good enough” is my writing mantra... I hope. Ken Wohlrob 7.18.2008 "You must kill your babies" (i.e. delete passages that while well written, don't serve the story) Dick Quinn 7.21.2008 "Don't worry about your mother looking over your shoulder as you write. She's not there anymore." Peter J. Grieco 7.22.2008 "Sometimes I sacrifice meaning for sound." --Lisa Forrest, Buffalo, NY poet & Rooftop Poetry Club organizer. ellen 7.22.2008 can I submit two? One under Ellen and the other under Nelle? "In order to give light, it is necessary to first burn. Viktor Frankl and "The task of the writer is to grab the reader by the back of the neck and force him to love life." Leo Tolstoy S.V. Patrick 7.22.2008 "If it sounds like writing, rewrite it." Elmore Leonard Anthony Tognazzini 7.22.2008 In workshop Stuart Dybek said to me: "This story is Tognazziniesque." Elizabeth McCarthy-Quiroz 7.23.2008 William Maxwell to Richard Bausch; "Perfection is an illusion". Jim Murdoch 7.23.2008 Writers don’t have lives. They have ongoing research. Lahn Singh 7.24.2008 7/24/2008 Confessional fiction and poetry....(sensational and compelling to the reader yet it's like cooking with cheese...much too easy.) Todd Zuniga 7.24.2008 For all posting here in the comments: don't! Shoot them over here: opiumwritersexperiment@gmail.com With who said them, who you are. Many of these are great, but fragments of what we need. Go forward! mike fowler 7.29.2008 Only thoughts arrived at while walking have any value.-Nietzsche. Sara 8.20.2008 My social life always suffers when I'm working on something I care about. I've learned to enjoy being alone.   Make your comments ... Name    (required)   Email    (required - will not be published)     Comments