Books and writing are the core of my life. I edit books, write books, and teach writing. I love this work, and will be happy to provide any editorial or writing service you need.
This is my chance to indulge in some of my favorite topics: books I’m reading; writing advice, my own and that of accomplished writers; what I learn from my students in my classes; and, oh yes, my soapbox, where I rant—mildly—about anything related to writing and publishing that makes me say “What?”
I also get to showcase amazing photographs taken by some of my favorite people. (In my next life, I want to be a photographer.)
Several months ago I heard John Irving speak at the Music Hall in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. A few months later I heard Margaret Atwood at the same venue as she read from her latest book and was interviewed. Both authors were engaging and dropped various jewels of insight that readers and writers could grab. Yet I was struck by one difference between them. Many fans of Irving have heard that he … [Read more...]
I overwrite at times. I don’t mean long phrase-upon-phrase, clause-upon-clause, description-upon-description sentences as, say, Virginia Woolf does. If I were capable of writing sentences like this from Mrs. Dalloway— The British middle classes sitting sideways on the tops of omnibuses with parcels and umbrellas, yes, even furs on a day like this, were, she thought, more ridiculous, more unlike … [Read more...]
I wrote a post a few months ago about how a children’s movie used an important plotting technique—that is, when a protagonist solves one problem, she or he should be confronted by a worse problem. Now advice from a documentary filmmaker, whose mother is a student of mine. Ginny was frustrated with the plotting of her latest novel, so her son told her he’d read it and see if he had any … [Read more...]
Further on the subject of practice. It may not necessarily make perfect (although a cat practicing the art of sleeping does appear to reach perfection), but practice does make better. And more practice makes better faster. That was, more or less, my daughter’s conclusion after completing an assignment for her high-school sociology class, which required her to do something for thirty days. She … [Read more...]
A friend of mine took this photograph, one of about twenty he snapped of this grasshopper on a summer day. And one of the thousands and thousands and thousands of pictures he took over his lifetime. Just a visual example of that old joke: How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice. … [Read more...]
