Photo Credit: Summer in Connecticut – The Old Barn at Branchville, J. Alden Weir, 1890’s, oil on canvas, Christie’s, New York: Trzesacz/Wikimedia Commons/PD Old 95 1934 Some of you might remember that I took a blogging break in April because of Camp Nano . Well, it's summer and Camp Nano is upon us again and I've decided to … Continue reading It’s Camp Nano Time Again!
Photo Credit: Photograph of Maurits (M.C.) Escher, around 23 Nov. 1971. Photograph probably made by Hans Peters (ANEFO), Ga het na (Nationall Archief NL): Vysotsky/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY SA 3.0 Many artists talk about the creative process. It’s one of those illusive ideas that fascinates non-artists and weighs heavily on the minds of artists because creativity … Continue reading Adventurous Perception: The Individual Creative Process
Photo Credit: Canadian singer Leonard Cohen in Trouville-sur-Mer (Normandy, France), taken 26 January 1988 by Roland Godefroy: Teddyyy/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY 3.0 “If words are the arrow, we ourselves — our interior landscapes, our outward actions, the authenticity of our lives — are the bow.” (Popova, par. 1) As many of my blog readers know, I … Continue reading The Emotional Badlands of Language, or, Language is Not Just Data
Photo Credit: Multi-colored puzzle pieces, uploaded 17 February 2017: Pixhere/CC0 1.0 Last week, I announced in a live Facebook post on my author page that I’m exploring new directions with my fiction. I also created a Coming Soon page on my website with more details about what I’m doing and why and what readers can expect in … Continue reading Character vs. Plot Puzzles: The Two Sides of My Fictional World
Photo Credit: The Blue Veil by Edmond Tarbell, oil painting, 1898: freeparking/Flickr/CC BY 2.0 “The creative personality never remains fixed on the first world it discovers. It never resigns itself to anything ... “ (Nin, location 3587) I love this quote from Nin because it’s so true of many creative people. The nature of creativity … Continue reading First Worlds: Writing and Blogging in New Directions
The bunny may be cute, but he’s not gonna win the race like that ;-). Photo Credit: The tortoise and the hare with the hare resting by the side of the road while the tortoise passes him up. From Children’s Favorites and Fairy Stories by various authors, edited by Hamilton Wright Mabie, Edward Everett Hale, … Continue reading A Tortoise and Hare Writing Allegory
Photo Credit: The young writer, 1958, on aTriumph Perfekt typewriter, manufactured by Trimph-Werke in Nuremberg, German: pellethepoet/Flickr/CC BY 2.0 ***Some spoilers*** Like many of my blog post ideas, this one began as the germ from an article I read and evolved through research. As a writer, of course I am always interested in the way … Continue reading The Corruption of a Writer’s Life: Billy Wilder’s Films About Writers
Photo Credit: Book, phone, and computer in chains, created and uploaded on 24 January 2015 by stevepb: stevepb/Pixabay/CC0 1.0 “I had to let go … then come back to the [book] understanding the new limitations as creative challenges.” (Tea, par. 4) I came across an interview with West Coast writer Michelle Tea quite some time … Continue reading Creative Limitations
Not exactly the Mom and Dad you would picture for the traditional (and fabled) nuclear family, is it? Photo Credit: A Grotesque Couple: Old Woman with an Elaborate Headdress and Old Man with Large Ears and Lacking a Chin, 1491 or 93 – 1570, Giovanni Francesco Melzi, pen and brown ink, Metropolitan Museum of … Continue reading Unlikely Pairings: Grotesque Domestic Fiction
Photo Credit: Book trash, taken 7 October 2017 by Paul Sableman: Meisam/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY 2.0 “[S]ome authors grow to dislike, disown, resent, or regret their books after publication—whether because of an unexpected critical or popular response, changes in their own views, or simple aging.” (Temple, par. 1) The idea that an author might hate a book … Continue reading Unhappy Accidents: Why Writers Hate Their Own Work
