The goal, I suppose, any fiction writer has, no matter what your subject, is to hit the human heart and the tear ducts and the nape of the neck and to make a person feel something about what the characters are going through and to experience the moral paradoxes and struggles of being human.
Read the rest of this entry »Archive for the 'Jessica Page Morrell' Category
Word of the day: littoral
With thanks to Robert Macfarlane (@RobGMacfarlane) Littoral: a shoreline region or related to the shoreline of a sea or lake; occurring at the edge of things. It also means the zone between high and low tide marks on the shoreline. In marine biology the definition is more complex and refers to the zone and conditions […]
Read the rest of this entry »A love letter to words
I like words. I like fat buttery words, such as ooze, turpitude, glutinous, toady. I like solemn, angular, creaky words, such as straitlaced, cantankerous, pernicious, valedictory. I like spurious, black-is-white words, such as mortician, liquidate, tonsorial, demimonde. I like suave “V” words, Svenghali, svelte, bravura, verve. I like crunchy, brittle, crackly words, such as splinter, […]
Read the rest of this entry »Solstice, also known as midsummer, is dawning….
The Solstice is about to dawn in the northern hemisphere, the year unspooling, flowers everywhere. My dahlias have begun blooming, well, some of them. In one section of the yard two scragglers have only begun to sprout up. The Solstice marks the onset of summer and the longest day of the year. Onset is a […]
Read the rest of this entry »Writing as Resistance
Writing has long been a tool for resisting and protesting tyranny, societal wrongs, and corrupt governments. With the latest crisis where children are being snatched from their parents seeking asylum, people are protesting from sea to sea. In fact, the country seems about to boil over from outrage, rage, and frustration. But luckily we’re writers […]
Read the rest of this entry »According to Markus Zusak
I like that every page in every book can have a gem on it. It’s probably what I like most about writing–that words can be used in a way that a child plays in a sandpit, rearranging things, swapping them around. They’re the best moments in a day of writing–when an image appears that you […]
Read the rest of this entry »Words are All We Have: Maeinschein
Do you have a favorite color? Mine is green, but especially the shades of spring green found in the Pacific Northwest. I could rhapsodize for hours on the many shades and their shimmery magic. When I hike I’m always pausing to point out the light illuminating spring leaves. But then I often pause while noticing […]
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