“My idea of art is, you write something that makes people feel so strongly that they get some conviction about who they want to be or what they want to do.”
—Mary Karr
Given all of the attention paid to best-selling books that were rejected multiple times, I wonder if an author can have a best-seller without being rejected. Perhaps more accurately, can anyone be a writer without rejection? Probably not. If you’re looking for good company, check out 10 Best-Selling Books That Were Originally Rejected.
October 21, 2011 — 1 Comment
Big thanks to Jenny for sharing this from her inspiration board: Ann Patchett on writing as a job.
October 17, 2011 — 1 Comment
“I call [other writers] the way the president would push the red button for nuclear armament. I’ve called Don DeLillo more than once. He sent me a postcard after one such call. It read: Write or die. I sent one back saying: Write and die.”
—Mary Karr
On dealing with doubt
October 14, 2011
From a distance
October 12, 2011
October is keeping me occupied with an interesting freelance project that’s about to take me on the road. I’ve been incredibly lucky: projects like this seem to come along once a year. Last fall, I traveled to San Francisco to tour and write about a series of performing arts venues. It was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had as a freelance copywriter.
Rather than pause this blog while I’m away, I’ll be posting links, videos and quotes I’ve been collecting, similar to the Ira Glass video from last week. If you find little snippets of inspiration you’d like to share, I encourage you to add them to the comments here or send them to me and I’ll post on your behalf.
If you need a writing break, I encourage you to go play in some leaves.
I love these mini-lectures on storytelling from Ira Glass. Here he shares how to get through the period of “your work not being as good as your ambitions.” Bonus: he uses his early work as a specific example.
On taking a while for your writing
October 5, 2011 — 2 Comments
Thanks to Liz for pointing me to this great piece by Anne Lamott on finding time to write.
