Writing | Writing
Aug.16.2008
I just found my new words to live by—in PetCo. I had to buy a Ph test kit for my kid's aquarium (for months the water's running acidic, and then I give it a little NaHCO3 goose and it jumps to pure-blue alkilinity—I figured I should buy a new test in case the old one was going whacky, but no) and...
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Aug.16.2008
What happens when you lose words?
I am at just such a loss now. And I need words most...
To express helplessness.To express thanks.To express displacement.To express the momentary.To express the momentous.To express agony.To express cynicism.To express hope.To express what is outside.To express...
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Aug.15.2008
We've been discussing great editorial advice, and how such feedback can improve one' s writing. The other side of this coin is the readiness to claim authority for one's work, and to make the kinds of stylistic and content decisions that only you can make. I've learned a lot about this at Squaw...
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Aug.15.2008
Today I go back to work. Since last October, I've been on sabbatical, so I haven't stood in a classroom for almost a year. It has been wonderful, my focus only on writing. Teaching takes up a huge amount of time, and time is one of the writer's most valued tools. Still, I feel excited to return...
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Aug.15.2008
Lord knows I don't need another blog. I have enough trouble keepping up with all I already have to do on a daily basis. Still, I could not resist the opportunity to rub virtual shoulders with people who love words and are passionate about writing as I am.
So, I'm in the Red Room. As soon as I...
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Aug.14.2008
I once lived in a renovated garage painted bright yellow. I was twenty-one and divorced. The garage was in an alley, and my front yard was my landlady's back yard of emerald lawn and tidy flower garden. I'd been writing poetry since I was about ten-years-old, but now, in my last year of college...
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Aug.14.2008
I have a journal I come across now and again during moves and wild cleaning frenzies. I carry it around in a cardboard box with all the other old memorabilia, stuff I should likely throw out but can't, pieces of paper that explain my life to no one but me. It's one of those boxes someone will...
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Aug.13.2008
Sometimes I feel as if I am drowning in paper. I actually love paper. I love messy desks, over-flowing magazine racks, and over-stocked shelves of books. However, sometimes there comes a day of reckoning and every surface I see is covered with undigested pieces of paper.
I will start to write. ....
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Aug.13.2008
Barbara DeMarco-Barrett is the author of PEN ON FIRE: A BUSY WOMAN'S GUIDE TO IGNITING THE WRITER WITHIN, published in October 2004. Booklist praised the book's "encouraging attitude and inspirational approach," and bestselling author and Washington Post book reviewer Carolyn See says it...
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Aug.12.2008
What is it about summer? I love the sunshine, the fresh air, the trips, the long days... and yet, yet, yet. Summer is a time to gather ideas for a writer, to look around, to talk to people, to get outside the little box of the office. Summer is not a time to write, not in depth.
This feeling -- and...
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