To create art, you need building materials. Not just physical materials like canvas, film, or banjos. First, you need an internal supply of building materials like vision, determination, and inspiration. Products of the soul. Michael Gungor I’m re-reading Stephen King’s book On Writing and what’s striking me as interesting is the way he writes about how […]
For a long time it seemed to me that life was about to begin – real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time to still be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me […]
100 Day Creative Challenge Day 93: Less is More One of the best writing classes I’ve been to was a business writing course. This may seem a strange choice of class for a writer of fiction to attend, but I’ve always struggled to write less. A 500 word limit in a uni assignment just about […]
100 Day Creative Challenge Day 92: Get Messy Why, when we know that there’s no such thing as perfect, do most of us spend an incredible amount of time and energy trying to be everything to everyone? Is it that we really admire perfection? No – the truth is that we are actually drawn to […]
100 Day Creative Challenge Day 88: Reasons To Write There are a hundred good reasons not to write. You have to steal back the time from your busy life and make your writing a priority. All art is in the doing. Action has magic grace and power. I gave a talk at the Inspire Collective […]
100 Day Creative Challenge Day 85: Pain is My Friend Anything worth doing is worth doing well. We’ve all heard the saying and perhaps trotted it out at certain times in conversation. The truth of this statement is that anything worth doing is going to involve some pain. I’ve returned to exercise after eight weeks […]
On the worst day of writing, the work is instructive. On the best day, the act is transcendent. Chuck Wendig My best day ever of writing was on the 8th of October, 2010 at Le Fontanelle near Siena in Italy. I sat on a lounger overlooking the Tuscan landscape. The sun shone on the vines and […]
Would you be willing to give your life to save the world if no one ever knew your name? If anonymity was the price you would have to pay for significance, would it be too great a price? To live a life of courage is not a […]
In art the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can inspire. Ralph Waldo Emerson Writers write about the human condition. Love, lust, murder, hurt, hate, blessing, cursing, adventure, regret, dreams fulfilled, dreams dashed, tragedy, comedy — the whole gamut of human experience is available for a writer’s attention. Lots of my friends write […]
