I had a friend who loved March: he was a Gemini, and cited “the push and pull, the back and forth” nature of this month in New England—essentially, that the month had “two faces.” I thought about this idea as I walked around the block in “productive meditation” this morning. On Friday, it was 60 […]
The Fickle Nature of New England March Read More »
Why are we drawn to what we’re drawn to? What clues to the creative process might be revealed from our obsessions? Can these obsessions yield art? Here are the opening passages from a failed essay on cats (yes, I know): In Milan Kundera’s novel Immortality, which I first read in 2004, there is a chapter
Cats, Or, I’m feeling irreverent today Read More »
How many drafts of a story, or essay, or book, do you write before it feels “done”? Ten, twenty, fifty, one-hundred story drafts? More? I used to think it made the most sense, when writing, to write as much as possible, only to later go back and pull all the unnecessary stuff out. Revision seemed
A Good Story Is Like a Seven-Layer Cake Read More »
I’ve been a little hum-drum about writing lately—a fairly typical state, what I might call my version of writer’s block (I’m never not writing, so block doesn’t fit right)—finding that most days when I sit down, what comes out is… BLAH. Not that it’s bad (sometimes it is!), but that it lacks that je ne
Writing into the ‘Adjacent Possible’ Read More »
Some dialogue resources from the archives: And a snappy YouTube video via Pioneer Valley Writers’ Workshop:
From blah-blah-blah to he said, she said: Dialogue Resources Read More »
I woke this morning from a dream so real I could taste the words I’d been speaking in my throat. It’s a recurring dream—not the actual events or settings, but the theme and tenor—a bank of images that appear every so often when I’m avoiding writing something that wants to be written. Why do you
The Stories that Haunt You Read More »
