Writing | Writing
Aug.01.2008
I've been thinking about inspiration lately and what a powerful, wonderful thing it is. Now, I'm not the kind of writer who waits to be inspired. I write every day. (OK, *most* days. I take a day off here and there.) But there are times when the words flow, and others when every syllable is a...
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Aug.01.2008
I haven't been as diligent about blogging here as I should. However, I've been blogging just about everywhere else (not that I don't love my RedRoom space...I've simply spread myself a little thin).
If you are interested, or need to kill some time, please visit my daily blog, RUAWAKE. If you are...
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Aug.01.2008
Sunday morning I leave for Knoxville, for home. By Monday the students will be asking me to sign their petitions and so forth. The demands of academia will hit fast and hard.
But for now, I'm writing and editing the new poems. I'm working on the children's book and facing up to the...
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Jul.31.2008
When Belle Yang asked me to show my writing space, I couldn't help but think of Brenda Dickson.
Who, you might ask, is Brenda Dickson? Well apparently, you never saw the famous YouTube video of Ms. Dickson. She made the video right after she left her famous role of Jill Foster Abbott...
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Jul.31.2008
My daughter's email began, "I have issues with the book." I had asked her to comment on a draft of the new children's book I'm writing. I respect her opinion--she's a terrific editor, though journalism is her metier and not creative writing.
Still, Heather is great reader (Heather...
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Jul.30.2008
I love to read. I used to worry that reading someone else's work might influence how I write. Mistakenly I believed that for my writing to stay "pure" I needed to do it in a vacuum. Today that myth was shattered, and in the process, an entirely new world of possibilities seemed to...
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Jul.30.2008
In honor of that convention that is in the process of strangling itself with its own success, I want to say a few words about the comics and their influence on modern art and literature. I am not a snob who looks down on graphic novels and says "pictures? Ewww..." I read The Watchmen...
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Jul.30.2008
Enough with the light weights! Anybody looking for a summer reading list, this is it. The Man Booker Prize longlist has been announced. On a number of occasions, I've sat on committees to choose "best of" -- not for the Booker, of course, but in my area of crime fiction. What...
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Jul.30.2008
Why is it when you're just starting out, writing feels like an enormous chore? Every word feels as if it's pulled out with some kind of blunt-tipped instrument, and your head is more like the remnants of a Saigon bombing campaign than actual human tissue.
Then, when you've been at it for a few...
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Jul.30.2008
In SHINING CITY, Seth Greenland’s latest novel, a middle-class family man with money troubles inherits his brother’s West Hollywood dry cleaning business and soon finds himself running a popular escort service. It’s an L.A. adventure story that Publishers Weekly calls “entertaining and intelligent...
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