Writing

Copyright Fallacies

What protects you here protects you elsewhere.

The Great Library of Tlan

This afternoon, as I nicked the rough edges off some poems and vignettes, I wanted a pass to the Great Library of Tlan.

One Month

Good reading slows me down.

A Mixed Metaphor

I'm for the early creation, the revision, the last ruin of the final monument.

Intimacy

A common trend among the blogs I like is that the people who write them don't just spew off about politics.

Cures and Paintpots

I'm looking at my disease in a new way.

Another Grammar Thing

Yes, Irene. We've heard the kvetching about our spelling reforms.

A Grammar Thing

I was taught and I continue to believe -- against all the grammar books -- that the position of the period when you quote someone in the context of a longer sentence which did not begin with the quote belongs outside the quotation marks.

What is Going into the Notebooks

I've been writing a lot of poetry lately, a few concentrated lines taking the place of the prose that I can turn out page after page.

What about the Glass?

Whether the glass is half empty or half full, it's going to make a wishy washy noise when you shake it.

Scratching at the Silence

The thing that is slowing me down is filling the brown notebook to meet tonight's deadline.

Quiet

Creativity, the child of Nature through the evolution of the throbbing human psyche, abhors blank paper.

Of Shining Worlds

In the wake of last week's parting of the ways, I've felt a brief lurch and a halt in my creative energies.

The Little Foxes of the Mind

As I roll along, describing a scene from my life, I pull the pen away from the sheet of paper and starting talking to an unseen audience.

Superior Communication

Does the Gettysburg Address rendered in Powerpoint become every bit as exciting as a company meeting?

Intimacy
This is from Thunder and Lightning : Cracking Open the Writer's Craft by Natalie Goldberg: We need to build our...

California Poetry Anthology
More than a few of you are poets. If you are a California poet, you should know that the deadline...

The Heart Again

Could it be that sometimes the heart is in control of the pen and deceives us so that it can proceed in its rank and broken way uninterrupted?

Fill

Fill.

Messages

If I refuse to be terrorized, what power do they have over me?

Between Dawn and Dusk

The time between dusk and dawn. My time. When I sit at the keyboard and open my mind like a vein and watch the blood dribble all over the place. Apologies to Sherwood Anderson for stealing his image.

On Eavesdropping

I'm looking for the real voices, the real life that people lead.

A Full Notebook

I keep all my cellulose lovers. They keep my secrets for me and tell me things about myself that I didn't notice during the writing of them

Boiled Brain
Imagine boiled brain on a bristling hot iron fajitas platter, garnished with chopped red onion. Who can write under those...

Writing like Boards
"How's your writing going?" a clerk at Barnes and Noble asked me. "In this heat?" I replied. "It's coming out...

Censorship by Giving Up

I believe that any good work of art will make it. In times like this, however, we must work harder to make it happen, put in our own labor or have a dedicated fan promoting it for us.

Not for Getting Laid

It feels good just to see the characters appearing out of the cursor, evidencing that you are alive.

Portrait of an Inner Critic

He looks a lot like me except he doesn't wear a beard.

On Wearing the Crown of Arrogance

Life's a guessing game. "We tell ourselves stories in order to live." Was that Joan Didion or Anais Nin?

Crossing a Creek

Neither writer nor reader should rush their exercise

What Went Wrong

Call it cheating, but wise words are wise words.

A Thought about an Open Mic Reading

It was like being at a Toastmaster convention, watching a virtuoso performance filled with the same trite bits of advice, the same jokes, the usual anecdotes, and everyone laughing on cue.

Writing About Place

We need not erect a mystery religion around an oak tree: just look at the tree, its slotted leaves, the acorns, the trunk, and the branches. Write about that.

Crap Crap Crap

Crap is good because at least it is writing. You see more of my crap because I have committed myself to keeping the memes going for a month or more.

Goodnight

That's the problem with this place, this body

Too many Is and I am the only "you".

Riley Wilderness 3

Labors

I don't know why I'm fighting so hard to meet a deadline for a contest with a $5 gift certificate as the big prize, but I finished a first draft of a story tonight and will put the final polish on it over the weekend.

On the Printing of Poetry

Three years from now, I want to be seeing my name somewhere. The best way is on thick paper printed off hard type set by hand.

Pleasureable Lies
Fiction and poetry are pleasurable lies. So why worry if the lines in the center of the road really do...

O'Neill Regional Park 5

Authorial Ego

"I inspired you. How thrilling."

Untouchable

Sometimes after I write, I just don't feel like being touched.

Manroots and Cheeseweed

If we're going to write about California, we should know our native plant life. And the names -- the names alone -- should startle and excite the imagination.

Critique on Critiques

I think it reflects a certain insecurity, an amateurishness, to raise a critique against a story to the effect that "it is too long to be a short story and too short to be a novel".

Inclarity and Paranoia

But I deserve neither the flak, the silence or the uncertainty that many of my readers have given me. Clarity is a responsibility that no one who writes should shirk. The reader is not always the one to blame.

A couple of quotes

I think I'm already there.

The Stories that I Want to Tell

Perhaps I will write a story about this time when things cool down, something that speaks to the ambivalence that I feel: loving people and hating, utterly hating the actions they propose and support.

Revision and Root Canals

I just took my pen and cut seven pages of drivel from the short story I've been working on

La La Land

I spent the day lurking in bed, searching for metaphor.

Keep it Simple?

I've been praised for the short story I've circulated within my circles and I've been warned that the language may be too difficult for the "mass market".

Writer's Potluck

Boring blog tonight. Better tomorrow.

Comics into Movies

Some writers feel threatened by the phenomenon. It's the old "I won't get my rightful cut of the pie" syndrome. (I don't expect my rightful cut, but I keep writing anyways.)

A Writer on Writing

I went to a lecture by a writer on how to bring real life into one's writing.

Better than a Critique
A new member of our group finally got his courage up and submitted a sheaf of poems. Like the first...

Joelabel's Canon

I'm putting the last touches on the short story that I am submitting to the writing group tonight and doing my best to be kind as I mark up the papers of the writers who present this week.

Getting There.

It's hard to say whether I have been using the story to keep from typing up the court papers or the court papers to keep from working on the story.

Anger Produces

I got so mad at myself that I started writing a story which I had been putting off.

American Magic Realism

....the author suggested, I might have a hard time coming up with stuff.

Thoughts after watching "Pollock" again

It's the madness of a saint wanting a desert all to himself

Offer for Blog Friends

I am sure that the mention of my book in progress tantalizes at least one of you.

Writer's Search

I would number these years as the most severe of my depression, when the world encased me within a blank cube and seemed to offer no alternative. I could call this time by many names: the Silence, the Paranoia, or The Pain.

Roach Motel

I need a something like a roach motel to catch them when they scuttle in under the cover of sleep to discredit my thoughts.

Scars

I have to feel that the tips of my pen cut the paper, like I'm ritually scarring the page.

Where the Writing Is
I'm back to note taking. Spending time trying to understand the mind of the main character as he experiences a...

Where the Writing Is
Today I find myself between chapters, making notes on characters and storylines for the next. I sit in the chair...

A True Finish
I gave a true finish to Chapter 2 today. The previous version has too few words. It had a preliminary...

Celebration
I treated myself to a Raspberry Tango at Tully's today as a reward for finishing Chapter 2 of my "fiction...

Neighborly Interest

What would they make of the discussions of the chat room disputes, my takes on contemporary politics, my mystical forays into the zoo, my thinking about photography, my rants, my love of absurd web sites, my expressions of uncertainty? Would they try to cure me?

The Photographer and the Writer

A critic in a writing course I took last fall told me that she thought my writing sounded like I looked at the world like a camera.

Writing from the Road

I almost can't write on the road.

Secrets

IRC people will tell you nearly any thing in private, so long as you don't blurt it out on the channel.

I was happy

Yes, I do have a life that is not IRC or the InterNet. I just need to get on my own case about leading it and writing about it.