“Start with a blank surface. It doesn’t have to be paper or canvas, but I feel it should be white. We call it white because we need a word, but it’s true name is nothing. Black is the absence of light, but white is the absence of memory, the color of can’t remember.” – […]
Read the rest of this entry »Archive for the 'Uncategorized' Category
“There is but one world and everything that is imaginable is necessary to it. For this world also which seems to us a thing of stone and flower and blood is not a thing at all but is a tale. And all in it is a tale and each tale the sum of all lesser […]
Read the rest of this entry »Panhandling
“Along with a great deal of sensitivity, you need to develop and practice the habit of noticing: a flicker of a facial muscle that suggests anger; the tone beneath words being spoken; the movement of wind in the linden trees; the bagging at the knees of a pair of pants; what your grandmother’s apron smelled […]
Read the rest of this entry »Write like it matters
Read the rest of this entry »Brutal Truth: The so-what factor matters. A lot.
Recently I got into a kerfuffle with a writer about an essay she’d written. It was a heartfelt chronology about a loss that was mostly a step-by-step medical report. Before I go further, you need to know that this person is lovely, intelligent, and tender. But she forgot about the so-what factor […]
Read the rest of this entry »Bitter truth: Being a late bloomer means you’re in a fight against time.
Last month I met with a writer who is about my age. We were chatting about a novel she was working on and the conversation turned to aging. We fall into the over fifty category much as this shocks me to write. She is working on a novel and is involved in a critique […]
Read the rest of this entry »Bitter Truth: Everyone has an Off Day
“Let’s say that he should go out and hang himself because he finds that writing well is impossibly difficult. Then he should be cut down without mercy and forced by his own self to write as well as he can for the rest of his life. At least he will have the story of the […]
Read the rest of this entry »How Not to Write a Novel (or much of anything)
Jessica P. Morrell© A story needs rhythm. Read it aloud to yourself. If it doesn’t spin a bit of magic, it’s missing something. Esther Freud Inspired by Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing, in 2010 The Guardian newspaper asked authors for their advice on writing productivity. Superstars such as Margaret Atwood, Roddy Doyle, Neil Gaiman, […]
Read the rest of this entry »Why I Write
Although I’ve written since childhood, it took me years to settle into the writing life of passionate interplay with words and ideas. I write because I find myself in writing. Writing helps me think clearer, teases me with questions, helps me figure out my life and my whirling thoughts once I type them onto a […]
Read the rest of this entry »File under I for Inspiration
“Most highly successful people carry around a bulky legacy of failures, humiliations, and dumb actions. The truly wise ones know that these potholes are not necessarily behind them. What this means is that they allowed nothing kill their will to succeed. And while they may have made countless mistakes, it’s unlikely that they ever […]
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