This just shot through the ether and landed on Dogpatch’s doorstep. Kristen’s post is guaranteed to muscle you into the writing zone. Enjoy!
Write FAST and Furious! Learning to Outrun “The Spock Brain”
Tag Archives: writing
Cerebral Crotch Rockets, Reblog
Filed under Craft
Mardi Gras Dogs – Showing Our Shelves
Call of the Siren and Jilanne Hoffmann have issued an all shelf bulletin, asking readers to present their bookshelves to the world, or at least some of them. In the game of “we’ll show you ours if you show us yours,” someone always has to go first. So in the spirit of Mardi Gras, we’re gonna give ya a little tease.
Here are three from Jilanne Hoffmann’s office. Is she missing any “must have” book on writing? Are there any in her collection you’d suggest she toss?
Continue reading
Filed under Howling at the moon
Dreams Come True – An Author and Child Connect
Folks, I cried when I read this, so I’m reblogging from Publishers Weekly. Get out your tissues:
http://blogs.publishersweekly.com/blogs/shelftalker/?p=10803&cpage=2#comment-80676
Filed under Howling at the moon
Writing Styles – What is Yours? A Test
Check out the writing analysis in a post by Joe N, a nurse working, living, and writing in Nepal.
The tool he highlights dovetails nicely with a book I’m reading, Stanley Fish’s “How to Write a Sentence.” It’s an interesting analysis of writing styles, but the tool found in Joe’s post may also use verb selection and placement, sentence length, and vocabulary to make the analysis more complete. Continue reading
Filed under Craft
Shakespeare – Sonnet for Writers
Sonnet LXXVII
“Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear, Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste; The vacant leaves thy mind’s imprint will bear, And of this book this learning may thou taste. The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show, Of mouthed graves will give thee memory; Thou by thy dial’s shady stealth mayst know Time’s thievish progress to eternity. Look, what thy memory cannot contain, Commit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt find Those children nurs’d, deliver’d from thy brain, To take a new acquaintance of thy mind. These offices, so oft as thou wilt look, Shall profit thee, and much enrich thy book.”—Shakespeare
Those “in the know” believe this sonnet was inscribed in a book with blank leaves.
Put it at the top of your own blank page for inspiration.
Happy day after the great Shakes Day!!
Filed under Howling at the moon
Pixar’s Story Tips
This dog
was wandering around through someone else’s blog this morning, Circles Under Streetlights, and discovered a fab reblog of Pixar’s story writing tips from the Indie Writers Guide.
Check out both sites for additional great info.
Hope your Thursday writing selves are getting things done!
Filed under Craft
True Words from Chinua Achebe
“…mediocrity destroys the very fabric of a country as surely as a war — ushering in all sorts of banality, ineptitude, corruption and debauchery,” wrote Achebe…
This observation rings true for all societies, not just Nigeria. It’s one that all writers, all artists, all workers should take to heart. Be wary of “good enough.” Be wary of those who disparage learning. Strive for perfection. Although you will never reach that goal, your work will be far better for the struggle. Rest in peace, Mr. Achebe. You have earned it.
Filed under Howling at the moon
Putting the Egg Together – Writing Picture Books
The fallacy: “Writing children’s picture books should be as easy as, well, cracking an egg from a long drop.”
This fallacy shares a bed with: “It’s only a few hundred words. I can crank that out in my sleep.”
And there’s another hiding under the covers: “I read picture books when I was a kid, and I’ve read them to kids. That makes me an expert.”
Makes for a pretty crowded bed, eh?
Shortly after stripping the bed and exposing these thoughts to the world, writers begin to mutter, “I didn’t know it would be this difficult.” Continue reading
Filed under Craft
Students of the essay take note: the above post from Café Casey is a lovely take on the learning process, whether it is painting, composing, or writing. Owning and then transforming “influence.”
I was looking at a picture of bamboo. I love bamboo. I have spent so many hours painting it. In my sumi-e practice, I have painted a million bamboo plants. In the beginning, I thought this was insane repetition. In Western schools you don’t sit and write the letter “e” a million times. Maybe that’s why I always flunked handwriting.
I used to sit and work on the same image or same kanji hundreds of times. Eventually, I learned, it was all the same. To create an image a thousand times is to create it once. Bamboo, chrysanthemum, a cherry blossom–whatever. The goal is to reach perfection. The reality is that perfection doesn’t exist. The perfection is, in fact, in imperfection. Sometimes, our drive to be perfect consumes us. We suffer. Practicing these arts teaches us eventually that the learning–the experience–is in the journey–perfection is just a destination to imagine…
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Filed under Craft, Howling at the moon
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