Challenge for Garson, Stephen, and Others (UNCLASSIFIED)

Garson O'Toole adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM
Thu Mar 3 22:13:00 UTC 2011


Wonderful work, Bill and Victor. Great citations!

Google Books has a match in a book that it dates to 1946 but it is
suspicious. Maybe Bill or Victor have already ruled it out. The match
is supposedly on page 576, the last page.

Cite: Confessions of a Story Writer by Paul Gallico, Page 576, A. A.
Knopf, New York.  (Google Books snippet view; Not verified on paper;
Susipicious; WorldCat  agrees with the date of publication)

It is only when you open your veins and bleed onto the page a little
that you establish contact with your reader. If you do not believe in
the characters or the story you are doing at that moment with all your
mind, strength, and will, ...

There is a match in a 1951 book with the same text.

A Reader for Writers by William Targ - 1951 - 322 pages - Snippet view
It is only when you open your veins and bleed onto the page a little
that you establish contact with your reader. If you do not believe in
the characters or the story you are doing at that moment with all your
mind, strength, and will, ...

This 1951 book appears to have a section about Gallico so it is
possible that the text is being reprinted.

Garson

On Thu, Mar 3, 2011 at 3:46 PM, Mullins, Bill AMRDEC
<Bill.Mullins at us.army.mil> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Mullins, Bill AMRDEC" <Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL>
> Subject:      Re: Challenge for Garson, Stephen, and Others (UNCLASSIFIED)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
> Caveats: NONE
>
> Walter Winchell column:  _Logansport [IN] Pharos-Tribune_ 4/8/1949 p 4
> col 7 [newspaperarchive]
>
> "Red Smith was asked if turning out a daily column wasn't quite a chore
> ... "Why, no," dead-panned Red, "You simply sit down a the typewriter,
> open your veins, and bleed." "
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On
> Behalf Of
>> Mullins, Bill AMRDEC
>> Sent: Thursday, March 03, 2011 2:33 PM
>> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>> Subject: Re: Challenge for Garson, Stephen, and Others (UNCLASSIFIED)
>>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> ----------------------
>> -
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       "Mullins, Bill AMRDEC" <Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL>
>> Subject:      Re: Challenge for Garson, Stephen, and Others
> (UNCLASSIFIED)
>>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ------
>> -
>>
>> Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
>> Caveats: NONE
>>
>> An AP column:
>>
>>
>> _Lewiston [ME] Evening Journal_ 9/9/1949 p 4 col 7
>> "Red Smith, celebrated sports columnist of the New York Herald
> Tribune,
>> said:  "No, you just sit down at your typewriter, open your veins --
> and
>> bleed." "
>>
>>
> http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=lYIpAAAAIBAJ&sjid=JWcFAAAAIBAJ&pg=1
>> 042,5959936&dq=typewriter+bleed+red-smith&hl=en
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> > -----Original Message-----
>> > From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On
>> Behalf Of
>> > Shapiro, Fred
>> > Sent: Thursday, March 03, 2011 2:22 PM
>> > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>> > Subject: Challenge for Garson, Stephen, and Others
>> >
>> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> ----------------------
>> > -
>> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> > Poster:       "Shapiro, Fred" <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
>> > Subject:      Challenge for Garson, Stephen, and Others
>> >
>>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> ------
>> > -
>> >
>> > In The Yale Book of Quotations, I list the following under Thomas
>> Wolfe:
>> >
>> > Writing is easy.  Just put a sheet of paper in the typewriter and
>> start
>> > bleeding.
>> > Quoted in Gene Olson, Sweet Agony (1972)
>> >
>> > This is often attributed to Red Smith.  An alternative wording is
>> "There's
>> > nothing to writing.  All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open
> a
>> vein."
>> >
>> > Can anyone find pre-1972 evidence of any variant of this?
>> >
>> > Fred Shapiro
>> >
>> > ------------------------------------------------------------
>> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>> Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
>> Caveats: NONE
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
> Caveats: NONE
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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