On writing
What dance is to movement, essays are to thought
There is a moment in Philip Glass’s memoir, Words without music, when he works as assistant to the sculptor Richard Serra.
“You know, Richard, I wish I could draw,” says Glass. “I can’t even draw a tree.”
“I can help you with that,” says Serra.
“Really? How?”
“I’ll teach you to ‘see’ and then you will be ... See more
There is a moment in Philip Glass’s memoir, Words without music, when he works as assistant to the sculptor Richard Serra.
“You know, Richard, I wish I could draw,” says Glass. “I can’t even draw a tree.”
“I can help you with that,” says Serra.
“Really? How?”
“I’ll teach you to ‘see’ and then you will be ... See more
'I have enormous respect for my art as an art and my craft as a craft, for skill, for experience, for hard thought, for painstaking work. I hold those things in reverence. I respect commas far more than I do congressmen.
[…]
Revision clears unnecessary obstacles away so the reader can receive the story. That is why the comma is important. And why the
... See more“Most writers now call any period of silence “a block.”
Would it not be better to look on it as a clearing? A way to go till you get where you need to be?
If I want to write and have nothing to write I do indeed feel blocked, or rather chocked—full of energy but nothing to spend it on, knowing my craft but nothing to use it on. It is frustrating, wea
... See moreWe are a wordy species. Words are the wings both intellect and imagination fly on.
Ursula K. Le Guin — ‘The Operating Instructions’
“I don’t know what I think until I write it down.” —Joan Didion
My product won’t write sentences for you. The slow process of writing is what clarifies thought, shapes identity, and cultivates a lens to the world. Writing is the whole point; it isn’t a chore to optimize, it’s an infinite game.
Michael Dean • Mega-Update
"Grammar is a piano I play by ear." — Joan Didion.
"Most good material is forgotten.
Write down the funniest or most interesting thing that happens to you each day. Most days will be boring, but if you write something each day, then you'll have 5 to 10 entertaining stories within a year or two. People are sitting on more funny stories than they realize because they do not have a habit of capturi... See more
There’s something in all of this
