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Between self and story
If you stay in newspapers long enough, you’ll only see words. —Ernest Hemingway I encountered Hemingway’s warning in my teens, reading everything by and about him. When I went to work in newspapers...
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Reading & writing in the digital age
When Steve Jobs presented the iPad recently, The New Yorker reported, “The decision to enter publishing was a reversal for Jobs, who two years ago said that the book business was unsalvageable. ‘It...
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It’s reading that’s hard
Writers complain a lot about how hard their work is. But dipping into Peter Elbow’s 1981 classic Writing with Power: Techniques for Mastering the Writing Process (2nd edition, 1998) gave me a new...
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On giving readers an experience
“Go to the pine if you want to learn about the pine, or to the bamboo if you want to learn about the bamboo. And in doing so you must leave your subjective preoccupation with yourself. Otherwise you...
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Keys to conveying experience
Writing theorist Peter Elbow believes a key to effective writing is getting readers to breathe “experience” into the words. To accomplish this effect, the writer must first have the experience herself....
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Writing by the ‘dangerous method’
“Frankly, I thought I knew how to write, but it turned out I didn’t, and I don’t. I don’t. I get to learn it over and over and over. It isn’t supposed to be easy. It is supposed to be … Continue reading →
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Art, craft, and the elusive self
I knew Dave Owen in another life—my Hoosier period—and since then he’s become an admired landscape painter in southern Indiana. In his thoughtful new blog post “With the Artist Added,” at David Owen...
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Scenes that work—for writer and reader
This post appeared originally in 2010 as “Keys to Conveying Experience” Writing theorist Peter Elbow believes a key to effective writing is getting readers to breathe “experience” into the words. To...
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Klinkenborg’s hymn to prose
Verlyn Klinkenborg’s long poem celebrates short sentences. The Rural Life by Verlyn Klinkenborg. Back Bay Books, 224 pp. Several Short Sentences About Writing by Veryln Klinkenborg. Knopf, 224 pp....
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To plan or to plunge?
What a nude “gesture sketch” class taught writer Rachel Howard. Go to the pine if you want to learn about the pine, or to the bamboo if you want to learn about the bamboo. And in doing so you must …...
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My blog turns six today!
You can hit the ground running like you’re shot from a gun But going the distance is the hard part, son Everybody looks good at the starting line —Paul Thorn, “Everybody Looks Good at the Starting...
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Sign me, Bemused
Christmastime musings on a slippery word, craft, self & pedantry. Or how I quit hating myself because Patti Smith blew the word too. If you wish to read a wide variety of texts (e.g., novels,...
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Thinking and feeling
[My class whiteboard outlines Joyce Carol Oates’s essay “A Widow’s Story.”] Messy essays & eternal truths: the work under writing’s surface. Trust yourself, you know more than you think you...
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Word by word
[My writing desk one recent day at Panera.] Writing’s values—intelligence, sensitivity & beauty—challenge me. “The ability to forgive oneself … is the key to making art, and very possibly the key...
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Feeling your way
[Tess plunged in, spray flying, and then she’d dog-paddle as fast as she could.] Editing while writing a draft is what I do. Then I revise—or cut. “Be careful what you set your heart upon,” someone...
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A creator’s credo
[Senior art exhibit, Miller Gallery, Otterbein University.] A student artist’s insights about making art apply to prose. In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities; in the expert’s mind there...
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