Archive for the 'Writing' Category

Writing for All the Wrong Reasons

Do most writers start writing because they want to teach readers something? I think I did. Then when I realized writing is So Very Hard, I shifted to hoping I might merely bring some people hope. But I started to realize no one without hope really reads books. So eventually, I think maybe I was only writing for myself, as a natural response to
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Why Writing Means Abiding

Of course, I’d heard the word for years. Discipline. But as a lifelong rebel, I’ve always associated it with restriction and not getting what I wanted. I gave my mom the hardest time trying to train me. It’s a good thing I turned out so awesome so I can prove how hard she worked. Discipline is like editing. Mom was
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Only by Patient Devotion

“I’ll go and I’ll finish this book. I have to. My whole damned life is tied up. Most people would like it tied up. And maybe I do. My many weaknesses are beginning to show their heads. I simply must get this thing out of my system. I’m not a writer. I’ve been fooling myself and other people. I wish
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Those Who Can, Do. Those Who Don’t Want to, Teach.

Writing a book is hard work. Everyone knows that. But what most people don’t realize is that it’s also a skill. And if that’s true, it can be learned. That’s why I love teaching my story course. You have to admit, the fact that it’s so easy to email a lesson, show how to apply it, and then evaluate what someone
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When Telling Stories Makes You a Liar

I’ve been collecting quotes for my upcoming story course. Some are fairly alarming. First, from Nabokov: “Literature was born not the day when a boy crying wolf, wolf came running out of the Neanderthal valley with a big gray wolf at his heels: literature was born on the day when a boy came crying wolf, wolf and there was no
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