1.27.2007

Why I Haven't Blogged Recently

Paper Coach : Teach Yourself to Write Fiction

Hey all, nothing useful to your writing in this post. Just letting you know I've been down for the count with two back to back flus (of different, horrid stripes), but expect to be posting again soon.

Good luck, write on, and never look back!

1.18.2007

Nugget #9: Truth

Paper Coach : Teach Yourself to Write Fiction

The acknowledged greats of the literary canon all demand truth, that we "write honestly". It is hard to find a renowned author who hasn't unleashed this imperative on aspiring writers. What does this actually mean, this call to truth? Julia Cameron caught the mechanic behind writing-with-truth and drove it home with a clarity that may authors' witty aphorisms or self-inflated declarations lack.

She writes, "When we are telling the truth about how we feel and what we see, we find very precise language with which to do it. Words do not fail us. When we are disguising to ourselves and to others the exact nature of what we thought or how we felt, our prose goes mushy along with our thinking." - Julia Cameron

I couldn't agree more.

1.07.2007

Nugget #8: Omitting

Paper Coach : Teach Yourself to Write Fiction

"a writer...may omit things that he knows...the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them...a writer who omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow places in his writing."
- Ernest Hemingway, Death in the Afternoon, p. 192

1.03.2007

Thoughts As I Go #7: Strict or Flexible?

Paper Coach : Teach Yourself to Write Fiction

Phase:1, Month:5, Week:1

I've noticed a certain phenomena recently. It has come up as I work with Julia Cameron's The Right to Write. I frequently find myself in places where I can read her book but have no ability to do the exercise (for example, standing on the subway). This happens a few times in a row. Now I've read three or four chapters in, but haven't done any exercises.

Is this good or bad? Helpful or harmful to swift progress?

I'm still doing the exercises, just in a 'catch up' fashion. Here's what I do: on the chapter page I draw two boxes. I label the first box "Reading" and the second box "Exercises". Then I check the respective boxes as I finish the reading and the exercises in that chapter.

Right now, I have three chapters with the reading, but not the exercises, checked off.

So is this getting ahead of myself, or just being flexible with the time my life offers?

Thoughts anyone?