There is a writing life. And you could lead it if you could only get past everything else, which is to say yourself. This is what a lot of writers eventually believe, even if they don’t start out that way. Maybe you believe it, too. It’s not the wrong way to think (tell me there’s… Continue reading Of Trouble, Money, and the So-called Writing Life
Tag: Wisdom of the ancients
The Heat Death of a Wandering Star
A fortune teller in Northern California looked at my palm and said, “You’re going to lead an unnaturally long life.” Then she slid my money back across the table and added, “I feel bad for you.” This was in 2008 or 2009. My memory of the year is less distinct than the mournful expression on… Continue reading The Heat Death of a Wandering Star
This Mad Dance
Looking at photos of relatives from the early 20th century, I’m struck by how incredibly normal they look, how I could walk down any street and see the same faces. Such an insight comes easily since I live near the locus of my ancestral lines, but I think it’s a realization one could have anywhere. … Continue reading This Mad Dance
Tiredness, Truth, and Mockery: the American Way
Today, I wonder whether I should re-think some of my ultra-liberal biases and attendant leftist news consumption. This is good. But, man, I'm beat. The alt-right (and the radical religious right) to me seems like a uniquely American expression of deep stupidity but, of course, I would say that. Look at my demographic: college educated,… Continue reading Tiredness, Truth, and Mockery: the American Way
The Crying of Lot 45
Trump’s last months in office. || Michael Davis Source: The Crying of Lot 45
Thoughts on Sally Yates
Woke up this morning thinking about Sally Yates—how standing up to President Trump seems to have dramatically influenced the course of her life, how I've watched part of her emotional transformation through social media, specifically Twitter, and how her public narrative seems to reveal and confirm things I've suspected about the nature of personal meaning… Continue reading Thoughts on Sally Yates
Freedom
There are only two sureties in life: that we have been born and that we will die. The rest, at least from a finite human perspective, is variable. No True Answers, No Answerable Truths Contemplating the mystery of our birth—why was I born?—is likely to cause a certain degree of anxiety, at least for those… Continue reading Freedom
The Voice in the Fire
As I have said many times and in many different ways, graduate study in literature and creative writing is not easy for anyone, even in the most favorable circumstances. There is an inner, emotional, psychological, processual effort that no one talks about and an outer, technical, rhetorical, production effort that everyone takes for granted. Both… Continue reading The Voice in the Fire
I Just Had to Let It Go
America I've given you all and now I'm nothing. America two dollars and twenty-seven cents January 17, 1956. I can't stand my own mind. —Allen Ginsberg, America If there is such a thing as a formula for success in life, it might go something like this: don't complain, get results, and watch your back.… Continue reading I Just Had to Let It Go
On writing when you feel uninspired and dead inside . . .
Set a word count goal. My minimum goal is 7 pages per week, which comes to about 2450 words. Give yourself permission to write poorly. You are the worst judge of your own writing, especially in a first draft. You need to get around your hangups if you want to be productive. The only way… Continue reading On writing when you feel uninspired and dead inside . . .
The Writing Expedition 