Oh, thank you! I agree it sounds like one of those untraceable things that seem to have materialised at some point out of the cultural ether.
I'm still cross with myself for not being able to attribute it. Sloppy! I'm normally super-careful always to write down where I found something. It's all very well admitting it in a blog-post, but when it means you can't use it in something more academic, it's completely infurating (on the heels of all the time you wasted TRYING to find it...)
I'll be forever attributing this to you Emma. That is a perfect rule to live by when one is writing (don't worry about the prose, follow the idea, editing will sort it out) but also when one is handling tough, challenging feedback from editors/readers. Put it together with the other (I can't attribute this, but I know that Debi A said it recently!) great advice which is "readers are always right about what is wrong, but they're never right about the solution," and you've got magical sword and shield to protect you on the 'writing a novel' battlefield!
Isn't it great? I hadn't connected that other axiom (which I think is Neil Gaiman and Harry Bingham, as well as Debi and me!) with this one, but you're right that they're both key to what really matters, which is teasing apart feedback to decide how to act on it.
Earliest of the only 8 GHits I can find for "be kind to your ideas" is a 2009 book https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=gdbsDQAAQBAJ
though it does sound like an aphorism.
Oh, thank you! I agree it sounds like one of those untraceable things that seem to have materialised at some point out of the cultural ether.
I'm still cross with myself for not being able to attribute it. Sloppy! I'm normally super-careful always to write down where I found something. It's all very well admitting it in a blog-post, but when it means you can't use it in something more academic, it's completely infurating (on the heels of all the time you wasted TRYING to find it...)
I'll be forever attributing this to you Emma. That is a perfect rule to live by when one is writing (don't worry about the prose, follow the idea, editing will sort it out) but also when one is handling tough, challenging feedback from editors/readers. Put it together with the other (I can't attribute this, but I know that Debi A said it recently!) great advice which is "readers are always right about what is wrong, but they're never right about the solution," and you've got magical sword and shield to protect you on the 'writing a novel' battlefield!
Isn't it great? I hadn't connected that other axiom (which I think is Neil Gaiman and Harry Bingham, as well as Debi and me!) with this one, but you're right that they're both key to what really matters, which is teasing apart feedback to decide how to act on it.