There’s a cage I’ve known. For longer than I care to remember now (the archive in the sidebar shows 2004), I’ve questioned why I write. Why I feel like I should. It wasn’t enough just to say what Parker Palmer says in Let Your Life Speak. As young people, we are surrounded by expectations that may have little to do with
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Having worked with many writers over the years, I’ve noticed that no matter what most motives us to write–personal, professional, spiritual, or emotional reasons–all writers have difficulty getting free of concerns about how their work will be received. Some of this is justified and positive, of course. It keeps us from publishing work that isn’t up to our high standards.
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I’m looking for the right music to set the mood… …because of course every artist is in training to concentrate more fully on the experience of the movement of their art. Writers train to hear the rhythm in the words. Musicians strain to hear the music in the notes…. So the question is what am I going to notice? What to
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The hardest part about writing a novel is to fishish. – Ernest Hemmingway I began this novel when our oldest daughter was 1. I’m still not done. In a month, she’s headed to high-school. When she was done eating, she’d wave her hands and say, “Fishished!” She wasn’t, of course, but that didn’t matter. She had important things to do.
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