Word by Word

Practical insights for writers from Jessica P Morrell

Archive for the 'Uncategorized' Category

Writing = noticing

“You know what I believe? I remember in college I was taking this math class, this really great math class taught by this tiny old woman. She was talking about fast Fourier transforms and she stopped midsentence and said, ‘Sometimes it seems the universe wants to be noticed.’ That’s what I believe. I believe the […]

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Quick take: Complicated

Plan complicated quirks, flaws and weaknesses in your whole cast of fictional characters. But then make these quality have consequences. Santino, Sonny Corleone, the oldest son in The Godfather was impulsive and a hothead, but he was also a loving father and husband and believed in protecting women and children. When his pregnant sister Connie […]

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Thought for the day:

“No matter how careful you are, there’s going to be the sense you missed something, the collapsed feeling under your skin that you didn’t experience it all. There’s that fallen heart feeling that you rushed right through the moments where you should’ve been paying attention. Well, get used to that feeling. That’s how your whole […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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Slightly Crazy: Map Your Course to Survive NaNoWriMo

I’ve heard NaNoWriMo referred to as the writers’ version of running with the bulls in Pamplona, Spain; a tequila hangover, a 30-day migraine, and an icy plunge into Lake Michigan in January, except you can’t escape from the water. Then again some writers relish this annual mad dash. It teaches you to show up. it […]

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Motivational Mondays: Alliances

Alliances Storms sent from Tropical Storm Anna roared through here last week leaving behind a soggy, tousled world and scattered, fallen branches. On Saturday we took down bird baths and feeders and anything that could fly around in our yard, and pulled out flashlights, matches and candles. On Sunday after the storm passed through we walked […]

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New feature here: Motivational Mondays

“What’s your story? It’s all in the telling. Stories are compasses and architecture; we navigate by them, we build our sanctuaries and our prisons out of them, and to be without a story is to be lost in the vastness of a world that spreads in all directions like arctic tundra or sea ice. To […]

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Advice from Don Delillo

First you look for discipline and control. You want to exercise your will, bend the language your way, bend the world your way. You want to control the flow of impulses, images, words, faces, ideas. But there’s a higher place, a secret aspiration. You want to let go. You want to lose yourself in language, […]

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