Category Archives: working method
Q&A: Dinty W. Moore on Buddhism, creativity, kindness & taming the ego
Listen to where the writing wants to take you. Understand that the writing itself will often provide far richer material than your logical, predictable mind. Even more “intellect-driven” writing—for instance, a dissertation—can benefit from the cognitive leaps that occur when … Continue reading
Filed under author interview, discovery, REVIEW, revision, spirituality, working method
Robert Caro's "painstaking process"
Reblogged from Elizabeth Browne: I’m tinkering with a nonfiction book idea. By that I mean, I have a book in mind that I’d like to write, and in fact have written bits and pieces of it and collected some research … Continue reading
Filed under blogging, immersion, journalism, NOTED, working method
Noted: Why It’s OK to Be Naïve
Why It’s OK to Be Naïve. I found this guest post at Jane Friedman’s site very inspiring—and true—about writing or about following and developing any passion.
Filed under NOTED, working method
Showalter: memoir is a ‘radical act’
My interview with Shirley Hershey Showalter concludes with her discussion of her writing process and of her vision for the potential for memoir, a “radical act,” to build peace in the world. Q: You prepared for writing a memoir by … Continue reading
Filed under author interview, memoir, poetry, spirituality, working method
Finding her memoir’s ‘topic sentence’
I want to prepare for the hour of my death by living one good day at a time. And I want to help others to do the same. —Shirley Hershey Showalter’s mission statement Shirley Showalter is an essayist, blogger, speaker, … Continue reading
Filed under author interview, electronic publishing, memoir, spirituality, working method
Shirley Showalter, ubuntu & memoir
Become an observer of your own creative process. It will help you uncover where you “sing” and where your voice falls flat. When you lose track of time and are not thinking about yourself at all but rather about your … Continue reading
Filed under electronic publishing, memoir, MFA, NOTED, spirituality, teaching, working method
Kurt Vonnegut’s 8 rules for writers
1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted. 2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for. 3. Every character … Continue reading
Filed under Dillard—Saint Annie, emotion, NOTED, structure, working method
Kurt Vonnegut on making art
There’s a swell book that’s out of print now. Maybe Seven Stories will bring it out again. It’s called The Writer and Psychoanalysis by a man who’s now dead named Edmund Bergler. He claimed he had treated more writers than anyone else … Continue reading
Filed under NOTED, working method
Q&A: a memoirist’s decade of discovery
Nina Hamberg, whose award-winning book Grip: A Memoir of Fierce Attractions I recently excerpted, answered questions about her motives and process. In the manner of Tobias Wolff’s great memoirs, Grip’s meaning is embedded in its story. A narrative of Hamberg’s … Continue reading
Filed under author interview, memoir, working method, workshopping
Noted: William T. Vollmann
I believe in the American myth that it is both admirable and even possible to devote one’s life to a private dream. The probability of failing oneself, either through laziness, incompetence or bad luck, or else, worse yet, through dreaming … Continue reading
Filed under fiction, journalism, NOTED, syntax, working method
