Getting Real about the Writing Process | Manuel Luz, Inside Pages

I like this clever article!

Near the beginning, Lutz writes:

When I write, I will sometimes stumble upon some witty alliteration or turn of the phrase, and I will stop and taste the words. Like popping a bottle of wine, I’ll sniff the cork and swirl the glass and sip it slowly and let it settle in my mouth. Then I will think myself clever, and read it over again and again, smiling and nodding at my own clueful brilliance. But eventually sanity kicks in, and I will think myself silly.

And later, he writes:

When I write, I always use hyperbole. But not as much as metaphors, which put butterflies in my stomach, cobwebs in my mind, clouds in my coffee, and flies in the ointment. Similes, in contrast, are like a cheap perfume in a dime store display—they smell good behind the glass, but on a woman, it smells like Aunt Gertrude. And alliterative similes are like long languid locomotive locutions of lasting lackadaisy. Rhyming is like chiming, with some miming set to a certain timing. Love rhymes with above, and you can add that to blue which rhymes with you. But if you don’t disguise the rhyme in some sort of metric ruse, you will end up sounding like a two-bit Dr. Seuss.

I think you'll like what he writes before, after and in between those paragraphs.

For more advice on the writing process, check out Garbl's Writing Process Links.