But isn’t it really about personal fulfillment? If you’re a struggling writer, you’ve probably had someone say this to you. In my long and frustrating journey to publication, I heard this a number of times, usually from friends who meant to encourage me. And, yes, there have been moments when I’ve asked myself the same…
Recently, the New York Times Book Review featured two writers asked to comment on the question, “Do critics make good novelists?” I wasn’t particularly interested in the question but was struck by two passages from novels cited by one of the responders. Both passages describe fictional characters named Daisy. In The Great Gatsby, the first view…
I heard Twyla Tharp say that to begin a new work of choreography, she enters a “white room.” Certainly, this is a metaphor, although a dancer’s creative space is likely an actual room/studio. But for writers, the white room is the blank page. Sitting in front of that blankness and typing in page 1 can…
“If ya ain’t got it in ya, ya can’t blow it out.” Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong “Write what you know” is a familiar adage to most fiction writers. But it’s an adage often misundertood. What it doesn’t mean is is that our stories should be limited to personal experiences and familiar places and pursuits.…
Writers often join critique groups. Others invite friends or colleagues to offer feedback on work-in-progress. Peer feedback can be important, sometimes even essential, providing helpful reality checks and critical insights. But allowing others to critique our work carries risks. Too harsh a critique may stop a writer cold and lead to an unfinished story or…
Several weeks ago, my husband and I streamed Das Boot [The Boat], the fictional war epic about a German U-boat and its crew, written and directed in 1981 by Wolfgang Petersen. It was a riveting film, all 3 hours and 48 minutes of it: the claustrophobic submarine, the men crammed aboard, old veterans, untested newbies, the steely captain, the naive war correspondent—and then the Allied warships tracking it, their ominous sonar pings more dramatic than any Hollywood soundtrack.
Several years ago, I was on a panel of writers that included P. T. Deutermann, author of military thrillers and other equally well-received novels. Deutermann told the audience that he begins a novel on one computer file, but when he gets stuck, he starts a second file. Before he’s finished he may be shifting back…
For a writer, an interview can be a daunting or nerve-wracking experience. But the interview done by Julie Joyce, co-owner of Linkfish Media, was a delight. I loved her questions and had great fun answering them. Of course, it helped that the questions were submitted to me in writing and I responded in writing. But hey,…
“…there was, in the rear of the house, the most delightful little nook of a study that ever afforded its snug seclusion to a scholar….” Nathaniel Hawthorne, from “The Old Manse.” The study Hawthorne describes overlooks a splendid New England landscape of orchards, rolling fields and the Concord River. Two great writers found inspiration in this…
“Kill Your Darlings, kill your darlings…” Stephen King On Writing No writer likes rejection letters, particularly the impersonal ones. But even rejection plays a part in the success of what we do. Rejections can send us back to the manuscript, to reassess and, yes, to edit and rewrite. When Absolution was turned down by…