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Categories
Tag Archives: writing process
Crossing the Bridge
Bridge-crossing is a metaphor, of course, and a clichéd one at that. It’s also an action grounded in regular habit for anyone who lives near water: to get to work, to school, to home, we cross a bridge. Growing up, I crossed one bridge most often: a world-famous landmark, its International Orange towers looming on movie posters, picture-book covers, and tourist postcards. As a girl, I knew it as the slightly eerie, almost ghostly passage home from my grandfather’s house. Miles of highway, city boulevard, and then, the fog-swirling bridge itself, huge lights casting the air outside the back window … Continue reading
On Deadline
I’m on deadline. I’ve written that before, many times, for the most part about a self-imposed deadline. Even this blog, which I try to keep posting to every-other-Friday, is a voluntary act. As much as I hope that some of you enjoy reading what I write here, I’m under no delusions that anyone waits with baited breath to read these words. Still, I do it, just as I sit down at the keyboard every weekday morning for a minimum of four hours to work on a novel that no one, as yet, clamors to publish. We need our discipline, our … Continue reading
Try, Try Again
Whatever works for you, I tell my students. There’s no one way to write, no hard-and-fast rule that guarantees success, as much as we want one. And yet, certain koan-like statements have made it onto my bulletin board or refrigerator. My current favorite, from Samuel Beckett quoted by Colum McCann a year or so ago in the New York Times: “Try. Fail. Try again. Fail better.” In my writing classes at UC Berkeley Extension, I emphasize process, the messy trajectory of moving a piece from first draft to polished prose. So, last July, when Jane Anne Staw mentioned “process” as … Continue reading
Posted in craft, teaching, Uncategorized, writing
Tagged Caribou Island, Colum McCann, David Vann, drafts, Fiction Writing Intensive, index cards, Jane Anne Staw, Legend of a Suicide, Lindsey Crittenden, Lydia Davis, Post-its, Proust, Samuel Beckett, Swann's Way, The Millions, UC Berkeley Extension, writers' colony, writing process
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Voices in Our Heads
This week’s post follows up on last week’s discussion of Jane Anne Staw’s talk on the five components of a writing practice, given at the Fiction Writing Intensive this past July at UC Berkeley Extension. Last week, I wrote about her tips on creating a safe place – both external and internal – for writing. Today, we’ll look at the next component: No Uninvited Guests. Some years ago, in grad school, as a T.A. preparing to teach my first class, I went a little nuts. I spent months reading every book I could find on craft, scouring anthologies for the … Continue reading
Posted in reading, teaching, writing
Tagged Anne Lamott, Art of Fiction, Bird by Bird, books on writing, Borrowers, Fiction Writing Intensive, internal critic, Jane Anne Staw, John Gardner, Lindsey Crittenden, UC Berkeley Extension, uninvited guests, writer's block, writing process
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