- Sure, it's very satisfying to finish something. Take a couple of days and be happy, or happyish.
- But—then you have to get to work to get your project published.
- And then you start on a new project.
- Writing is a way for me to understand the complicated world I have been born into….
- Sometimes! But it's changed over the years.
- I usually listen to the Clash before starting work....
- Well, it's capitalism.
- Percival Everett once told me that "the writer's true self will always elbow its way onto the page."
- For most of us, our fears are very deep and usually unspoken.
- We are all complicated!
- You can just skip a space, and then the narrator can begin the next section, "Months later...."
- The best thing about teaching CW is working with energetic young people....
- Stories can come from everywhere, and do.
- Once a piece gets published, it's pretty much done. But until it's published, feel free to go back and back again, if you want, until you are truly satisfied....
- Many writers have a tendency to overwrite the ending. Just cutting off the last couple of paragraphs or so, or even the last words, can be an easy fix to make the story better.
- There are no definitive endings in nature. Abrupt is often better...?
- In a short story, you don't want to have very many characters. There’s not enough room for them!
- I know my first drafts are flawed. I know that every text is flawed. So—of course, I've written a flawed text.
- Then I revise—and I fix the flaws.
- My advice—accept the flaws and move on and finish. Then fix the flaws.
- Of course, I grew up in the 1970s, and these things were little understood....
- The more you write, the better you get. It really is a learning process....
- Paragraphs!
- You probably want to leave with the impression that the life of the protagonist is....going on....but it's going on differently because of what happened in the story....
- Yes. Keep moving forward. Finish the story.
- Then—abandon it, or revise it. But finish it.
- Please don't ever delete your work!!!!!!!! You might want those words later. THEY ARE PRECIOUS.
- Well...it took me 45 years to finish writing my first book. But—from first word to final draft? About three years.
- The idea what to write—well, I have hundreds of ideas. I'll never write them all. But I chose the one that spoke to my heart.
- Make significant changes. Look deep into your story and your poems. Elevate them.
- Just making grammar/spelling/punctuation changes are not enough....
- For me, the crisis we're living through is a spur to get going and keep going. "I will not be defeated," etc.
- Try taking your response—anger, sadness, whatever it is you're feeling—and put it in your writing. Engage with your environment.
- "Anger can be power."
- Pandemic is putting the kibosh to FTF networking.
- Keep writing. Keep learning. Support other writers. Be a Literary Citizen.
- Make everything better.....
- There are many ways of telling stories....
- NO!!!!!!!!!
- Again, I grew up in the 70s. So, yes. And there are stories about that.
- America has always been a tense and violent place.
- You have heroic rescuers! Anguished loved ones! And the tick-tock final breaths of the unfortunate trapped human....
- Yes, a contemporary rebooted version of Ace in the Hole would probably add more moral complexities....
- It would be a heartwarming human struggle which would take our media minds off the grim pandemic/political news.
- People would go crazy for this!
- (Let's pool our money and acquire the rights....?)
- A novel? One....
- Stories? Maybe eight or ten....
- I think he was going for bleakness—the (apparent) emptiness and desolation of the desert….
- But my favorite is--The Big Lebowski!
- Best movie about journalism? His Girl Friday, with Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell. (Streaming on Amazon).
- Every little town had a least one newspaper.
- All kinds of madnesses are out there....
- We get to talk about it next week!