how to write

You’re talking to a person at a party and his or her attention is elsewhere, annoyingly. How do you get their attention back to you, and then hold it?

For me, that’s the essence of my approach to writing.

Two very simple rules, a: you don’t have to write. b: you can’t do anything else. The rest comes of itself.

So I’ll just go ahead and explain my current situation for my own selfish purposes. To push myself to be completely (and awkwardly) vulnerable to a blob of nameless strangers over the internet. No expectations of what comes out of it.

Lately, when I’m stuck on a piece, I will print everything I’ve written and re-read it with a pair of scissors in hand. As I go, I will cut out the pieces that feel like they’re working: a phrase here, a sentence there, entire paragraphs if I’m lucky. Then I’ll lay out all the cut-out pieces on my desk and move them around, trying to find the right... See more

Look at how the writers you love are doing things, and then copy them. I’m such a believer in copying. When I was teaching writing, I used to say: “Leave off this paragraph of an Elizabeth Bowen story; write the next paragraph.” And they all thought that they were copying Elizabeth Bowen. It didn’t sound like her at all. It sounded like them, but... See more