Dost thou wish to be praised by a man who curses himself thrice every hour? Wouldst thou wish to please a man who does not please himself? Does a man please himself who repents of nearly everything that he does? - Marcus Aurelius, The Meditations, Book VIII Most writers will tell you that envying the… Continue reading On Envying Other Writers
Tag: Arts
The Stars Our Destination
Writing seriously means nursing enormous egotism, believing that your inner life is worthy of concrete expression, worthy of sharing. The outside world wants to constantly remind you that you are nothing but a small, failed, decaying byproduct of its grand mulching system. But bringing forth what's inside you gives independent life to something that never… Continue reading The Stars Our Destination
Cognitive Bric-a-Brac
I spend a lot of time writing about writing, but I don't say very much about reading. Since the line between what we write and read is always very thin, I think I should remedy that. I'm planning a "creative writer's reader response" post sometime soon. For now, I think it would be fun to… Continue reading Cognitive Bric-a-Brac
The Discipline: In Your Head, Off the Street, and Away From the Club
The discipline has three steps. It begins at home. You want to do something--paint, write, act, play the hammered dulcimer, whatever--because it calls to you. It's more than just a passing interest and you're aware of this (I think hammered dulcimers are kind of cool, but I feel no compulsion to start taking lessons down… Continue reading The Discipline: In Your Head, Off the Street, and Away From the Club
A Tale of Two Cities (or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Creative Writing)
It was the worst of times. It was the worst of times. It was incontrovertibly, without a doubt, the absolute worst of times. And yet my former student—we will call her Mary Sue—still had the presence of mind to ask me how I was before she broke down in tears. She’d gotten rejected by 7… Continue reading A Tale of Two Cities (or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Creative Writing)
Problems and Solutions
This morning I sat down at my desk, read for a while, and then asked myself the same questions I’ve been asking for the past 15 years: what can this writer teach me? What does s/he do especially well that I can study? How would I write this differently? What I haven’t often thought of… Continue reading Problems and Solutions
By an Inner Sky I Chart My Way
The structure of what I write is the structure of my emotional life. My fiction isn’t autobiographical in any overt way. Yet how I approach my subject matter depends on the way I see the world and myself in it. Therefore, conceptually, perceptually, structurally, I write the narrative of my life the way I write… Continue reading By an Inner Sky I Chart My Way
The White Space and Transitions in Short Stories
The following is taken from my response to a former student who asked: "When writing a story and you find that you need to hop around from one scene to another, but not start a new chapter, what do you do?” In other words—how I decided to construe the question—how do you break scenes and… Continue reading The White Space and Transitions in Short Stories
Invoking the Muse
O Divine Poesy Goddess-Daughter of Zeus Sustain for me This song of the various- Minded man Who after he had plundered The innermost citadel of Hallowed Troy Was made to stay grievously About the coasts of men The sport of their customs Good or bad While his heart Through all the sea-faring Ached in… Continue reading Invoking the Muse
Rolling the Hard Six
Countdown to Africa continues. The next battery of inoculations takes place tomorrow, after which I will tutor my nephews and collapse on the floor twitching and mumbling. At the same time, I’m doing additional paperwork for Japan. This crazy life I’m leading is at least keeping me awake. The best case scenario will have me… Continue reading Rolling the Hard Six
The Writing Expedition 