Writing about Writing
When you write something. It is meant for someone, it is meant to put something on record and to communicate that to someone else. I look back at my “dear diary” books (yes, I still have them) and I cringe at the angst and the repetition but those pages were the first steps in me being willing to open my heart on the page. And that, if it is going to be more than grocery and to-do lists, is what writing allows us to do.
Hemingway said (well, maybe he said it, there is much debate) “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” It might not be quite that bad, but, I paraphrase Robert Browning, “let your reach exceed your grasp, or what’s a heaven for?”
In “Writing About Writing” I explore all the aspects of this life, from finding stories to choosing just the right notebook. I encourage responses and contributions. Written, of course.
The Dread Writer’s Block
Since way back – I’m talking graduate school – I’ve been interested in why people who love to write and want to write and have a story to tell get stuck. They’ve been sailing along and then suddenly they are like one of…
The Hero(ine)’s Journey
A few days ago I started a challenge called Write Your Way Through This which promised a series of daily prompts to record this time of anxiety and social distance. After only two prompts, I had an idea: group the prompts to roughly…
Boomers as Elders
OK, Boomers (yes, I see what I did there), we are in the midst of a crisis in which we have been told we are not only in the high-risk category but that if we make it to hospital, likely someone younger and…
Mind the Gap
I recently had someone I trust report something political he had “read on the internet” that I was expected to find both stupid and outrageous. The anecdote played well into my biases and I found myself tempted to pile on to the anecdote,…
Story-listening
In which Coyote teaches me to listen to stories in the appropriate frame of mind. “Tell me a story,” I demanded. ‘Demanded’ might be too strong a word because I meant it as a compliment. Coyote tells such good stories and I love…
Country Funeral
“Have you ever seen a ghost,” my friend asked. We were having breakfast at Cafe Dewitt. I was on the banquette with my back to the fishtank. We were early so no one was seated nearby but that might have caught their attention.…
To Delve
I learned a counting rhyme when I was a child, “One, Two Buckle My Shoe.” I recited it, of course, but there wasn’t anything in the lower numbers to hold my interest—three, four shut the door; five, six, pick up sticks; seven, eight,…
The (Possible) Return of Coyote
There is something very satisfying about writing on a typewriter—rolling the paper in, the active little clicks, ripping the paper out if what you wrote didn’t work …. Or just ripping the paper out if it was time to go down a new…