Tag archive: writing
A Brennan Manning prayer
Jesus, Son of the living God, anoint us with fire this day. Let your Word not shine in our hearts, but let it burn. Let there be no division, compromise, or holding back. Separate the mystics from the romantics, and… continue reading »
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery
, I hear. In Prose Style with Dr. Allison, we learned the importance of imitation writing. Three of the essays we wrote that semester were imitation pieces. I wrote a short story imitating As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner,… continue reading »
Install me in any profession….
O God, O Venus, O Mercury, patron of thieves, Lend me a little tobacco-shop, or install me in any professionSave this damn’d profession of writing, where one needs one’s brains all the time. – Ezra Pound’s “The Lake Isle” —… continue reading »
Wishing writing could change me
Sometimes I think my writing can change me. And it always can, but only to a certain extent. I want writing to bring me peace about a situation, but it’s only temporary. I think of my smoking poem from last… continue reading »
Go get a life
At a panel discussion with top literary magazine editors at the College Media Advisers NYC conference Monday, a quote by Rainer Maria Rilke came up. You’ve heard it before: “Write what you know.” One of the editors pointed out that… continue reading »
Cross-train
So I write a lot — go figure, I’m a writing major. But, I don’t spend a lot of time writing for fun. As outlined in my last Scriptwriting blog post, I do a lot of everything for my classes,… continue reading »
Sh*tty First Drafts
I’m learning the fruit of my creative effort often ripens instantly. I’ll sit down and get thousands of words, but then a week later, working with the same discipline, will have nothing. But my job is not to make the… continue reading »
Imagination
This weekend my friend Caitie and I went to see The Decemberists perform in Chicago. The Decemberists is one of my favorite bands, particularly because of lead singer/songwriter Colin Meloy’s imaginative writing. I think Colin was probably like me as… continue reading »
Poetry as Therapy pt. II
Thursday I was upset about something (or, many somethings) while I was at Nathan’s house. After some crying and some huffing and gruffing, I did what I always need to do when I’m upset: I wrote. I laid down on… continue reading »
The strenuous marriage of writing
“Being a writer is a strenuous marriage between careful observation and just as carefully imagining the truths you haven’t had the opportunity to see. The rest is the necessary, strict toiling with the language; for me this means writing and… continue reading »