Holy First Person Singular, Batman!
Call me a spiritually obsessed literary geek, but the little spiritual wisdom I can claim I’ve gleaned from grammar.
Holy First Person Singular, Batman! Read More »
Craft
Revising in a Tumultuous World
Revision is basically re-vising, or seeing again. The word closest to revision in English is respect. When we look a second time, then a third, fourth, and fifth, we come to know and love the complexity of what we see. There are many facets to any subject, and revision asks of us the forbearance, humility, and creativity to seek out as many facets as possible.
Revising in a Tumultuous World Read More »
Enduring the Discomfort of Writing
A writer’s capacity to tolerate discomfort, along with violent busts of elation and anguish, determines how deeply and for how long he or she can reside in the generative state.
Enduring the Discomfort of Writing Read More »
Intercourse with the World
The main drama of memoir is not what happened in the past but what happens when we consider the past and allow ourselves to be changed by the consideration.
Intercourse with the World Read More »
Writing as Deep Listening
Every story has a hidden life—a soul, if you will. How writers tend this soul significantly affects our work and our well-being. This tending is really active listening. It’s both willful, sprung from the self, and responsive, heeding that life-force beyond the story and its readership.
Writing as Deep Listening Read More »
Walking On Air
But this is our progression when learning an art, and (I suspect) when living life: First we’re unconscious, then we’re self-conscious, and then we’re aware of being self-conscious, which is truly agonizing. Only then can we come into consciousness and make conscious choices that shape our lives.
Love Matters Most: My Latest Writing Credo
Love is literature’s essential ingredient. If we writers can center ourselves in our love—for the subject matter, for the writing process, for the language, for the readers—then we’ve got it made.
Love Matters Most: My Latest Writing Credo Read More »
Writing and Forgiveness
Forgiving ourselves and proceeding regardless is a fundamental part of living fully, and writing well.
Writing and Forgiveness Read More »
Broken & Beautiful: How the Light Gets In
The funny thing is that, wrong as we are, we do belong here, and wrong as our work may be, it belongs as well. Everything is cracked, and everything is beautiful.
Broken & Beautiful: How the Light Gets In Read More »
Undoing the Single Story
Revision insists that we reject the single story in favor of layered, complex, and contradictory stories. Just as intimacy and awareness break down our stereotypes, intimacy with and awareness of our material break apart our over-simplifications and half-truths.
Undoing the Single Story Read More »