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Posts Tagged ‘creative writing’

Permanent Code

Posted in Culture, Hi Tech, Low Tech, tagged , , , , , , , , , on 23 Jan 2014| 12 Comments »

Box o' Letters

If you were born before 1980, it’s likely you are writing in code.

That’s right. Cryptic code.

We have a young houseguest staying with us. She’s nineteen. I literally have t-shirts older than she. Needless to say, having her with us has been an education, on both sides.

The other day, she watched with fascination as I sat down with pen and paper and slowly, over the course of the day, wrote a letter, by hand.

The fact that my correspondent and I had never met didn’t seem to faze her–in this day of social media, it’s commonplace. Nor was the idea of sending a letter by snail mail particularly foreign; presumably she’s sent a bill payment or a birthday card in her lifetime. She was curious about the slowness of the process, that it took several sessions at the desk to complete a single letter, but that wasn’t the big issue.

No, what really puzzled her was something much more basic. (more…)

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Odd Ducks

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , on 17 Jan 2014| 8 Comments »

It’s happened to us all. That moment when a word–a perfectly innocuous, everyday word–suddenly looks weird.

It happened to me the other day. The word was “dirt.” I wrote it down and suddenly it looked misspelled. I stared at it. I tried “durt,” but that was even worse. Dirt. Dirt.

Dirt.

Oddly, when I wrote “dirty,” that looked okay, but “dirt” still looked…wrong. Truncated. Too tall. Too narrow.

Last year, I had a similar episode with the word “schedule.” We haven’t gotten along, since.

Thankfully, these episodes are transitory. Eventually, usually within an hour, the word loses its alien quality and becomes once more a regular, banal word from my daily lexicon.

Except, that is, for the “odd ducks.” (more…)

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Who I Read and Why

Posted in Books, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on 06 Jan 2014| 9 Comments »

Stack of BooksWriters aren’t like normal people.

When writers read–be it a book, an article, or sometimes even a headline–we study, parse, and edit. We re-word what we read (“It would be better like this”), we laugh out loud at ugly phrases (“He threw up his hands”), and we will kick a book across the room before we’ll read another page filled with moronic characters and Swiss cheese plots.

This can take a lot of the enjoyment out of reading, but on the flip side, there are joys in reading only writers can experience. We have WIWI moments (“Wish I’d Written It!”) and can find ecstasy in a well-wrought sentence or a surprising image.

We also learn from reading. We learn a lot.

(more…)

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It’s a Rule

Posted in Culture, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , on 31 Dec 2013| Leave a Comment »

Salal RainIt’s Blogging 101: Thou shalt recap the year.

(more…)

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An Inconvenient Idea

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , on 30 Dec 2013| 6 Comments »

Stack of Books

It is an unfortunate truth that inspiration usually strikes when you are least able to act upon it. The perfect solution to your living room furniture arrangement comes when you are away on holiday. The critical piece of a work problem comes when you are in the shower.

Today, I got an idea for a new story fifteen minutes before I had to be at work.

I’d just spent the holiday week relaxing, watching movies, streaming a new (to us) series, cooking a big meal of crab cioppino for friends, and puttering in the garage. During that time, my writer’s mind was a blank (aside from pangs of guilt over not working on my novel).

All week, nothing, and then this morning, just as I was preparing to get up and get back to the work-a-day monkey-boy grunt-job, bam.

I hate that.

Excuse me while I scribble down some notes…

k

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The Art of Racing in the Rain

Posted in Books, tagged , , , , , on 09 Dec 2013| Leave a Comment »

Though they show no particular affinity for me, I love dogs.

At my core, I’m a cat person, but I adore the dogness of dogs and the unique relationship they can have with humans. And though it may sound strange, I love the humanity of dogs, their willingness to love us and to trust us (whether we deserve it or not).

It is not a surprise, therefore, that I enjoyed Garth Stein’s The Art of Racing in the Rain. It’s told by a dog. It takes place in Seattle.

What is a surprise is how much I enjoyed it.

Seriously. This book is now on my Top Five list. As a reader, I loved it. As a writer, it taught me some lessons I’m ready to learn. (more…)

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Bad Juju

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , on 20 Nov 2013| 6 Comments »

TFL Problem

What do writers have in common with baseball players?

We’re incredibly superstitious.

A writer friend composes all her novels on this laptop. She sits on the couch, has the computer on her lap, and types away. It’s the way she works (and boy, does she work!) Well, one day her laptop was giving her problems and we all piped up with suggestions such as getting a USB keyboard, putting it up on a TV tray, or working on the other computer for a while, etc. These suggestions were all shot down because all of them messed with her successful method. She writes in a certain way and anything that is not that certain way is simply unacceptable.

I’m the same way. If anything isn’t the way that’s worked for me in the past, it’s simply unacceptable.

Hence, my current problem. (more…)

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