The root of creativity is in the murky waters of deep imagination. Making contact might involve sitting quietly and looking out the window as the light comes. It might be gardening or long walks in the woods. – Roderick MacIver
Read the rest of this entry »Archive for the 'writing inspiration' Category
Thought for the day:
“I feel that you take from your life experiences, but to make it fiction, you take it to a deeper level. You transform the mundane disappointments or the joys to make it true storytelling. You have to go much farther. You have to be a kind of spy and listen carefully.” ~ Elizabeth Brundage
Read the rest of this entry »Advice to you writers from Kurt Vonnegut
November 5, 2006 Dear Xavier High School, and Ms. Lockwood, and Messrs Perin, McFeely, Batten, Maurer and Congiusta: I thank you for your friendly letters. You sure know how to cheer up a really old geezer (84) in his sunset years. I don’t make public appearances any more because I now resemble nothing so much […]
Read the rest of this entry »Quick Take: Write What Scares You
Writing what scares you doesn’t require that you write a depressing memoir, lonely tale, or gore-soaked, zombie-slasher free-for-all. It does mean you’ll be revealing the inky, complex emotions and potholed messes that shape a life. It means you’ll be thinking about human foibles and not-so pleasant qualities.No matter your genre, fear should have you peering […]
Read the rest of this entry »Motivational Mondays: Oscar Wilde on happiness
“With freedom, books, flowers, and the moon, who could not be happy?” ~ Oscar Wilde
Read the rest of this entry »Thought for the day:
“Maybe learning how to be out in the big world isn’t the epic journey everyone thinks it is. Maybe that’s actually the easy part. The hard part is what’s right in front of you. The hard part is learning how to hold the title to your very existence, to own not only property, but also […]
Read the rest of this entry »Remembering Mark Strand
In case you’re not aware that Mark Strand, a former Poet Laureate, has passed away at 80 or of the beauty, scope and importance of his work, here is the link to his obituary. It’s a noisier world without him in it observing, bringing us into his golden lantern light. THE END Not every man […]
Read the rest of this entry »Here’s one for Motivational Mondays
You know, I do believe in magic. I was born and raised in a magic time, in a magic town, among magicians. Oh, most everybody else didn’t realize we lived in that web of magic, connected by silver filaments of chance and circumstance. But I knew it all along. When I was twelve […]
Read the rest of this entry »Scholarship
I am offering a scholarship to my upcoming From Idea to Story workshop on Saturday. The information about it is a few posts below. Also, the autumn The Writing Life newsletter has been emailed. If you didn’t receive it or need to update your email address please let me know. Keep writing, keep dreaming, have […]
Read the rest of this entry »From Idea to Story workshop on November 8
November 8, 9-4:30 Tabor Space, Portland, Oregon Writers have long grappled with the problem of taking a flash of inspiration through the marathon process of completing a finished work. That flash is your premise. But a premise on its own is flimsy, […]
Read the rest of this entry »
