One of my favorite inspirational sayings is: “You don’t have to go fast. You just have to go.” I recently read that poet William Wordsworth composed most of his poems while walking through meadows, moors, and mountains. He rambled in every kind of weather and all over Europe. In fact, a friend calculated that he had walked 180,000 miles in …
David and I spent the late afternoon climbing up to and wandering around the Acropolis. With Athens’ daytime temperatures in the high 90s, we were grateful to have scheduled our visit for 6 pm. Our local guide, Eva, was fantastic. In addition to being a fount of knowledge about Athens art and history, she had a lot of opinions, especially …
I’ve begun reading a paper called “Hamlet’s Blackberry,” by William Powers. In it, Powers tackles the current illusion of importance we all maintain by remaining very busy. He points out the dilemma we face: busyness doesn’t create happiness. “We tend to think of life in outward terms, as a series of events that unfold in the physical world we all …
Need a little inspiration for your writing day? Try this quotation by Pulitzer Prizewinner Suzi-Lori Parks. “The writer has two kinds of faith: actual writing and sitting openly. Have faith in your personal effort or sweat. And faith in God, or whatever you want to call it. Then the voices will come. Faith is the big deal.” ― Suzan-Lori Parks …
I’m thinking of doing an adaptation featuring E.W. Hornung’s characters, Raffles the master jewel thief and Bunny Manders, his sidekick. The stories are clever and elegant, and there’s a sly critique of the class system built into each one. The Raffles stories were written at the same time as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories, and were a kind …
The Latin phrase “Solvitur Ambulando” means “It is solved by walking,” and is attributed to Diogenes. Walking? “What problems have ever been solved by walking?” you may ask. Walking is decidedly low-tech and not particularly glamorous. Nothing could be more simple for those of us lucky enough to be ambulatory. Walking is so boring that the word for a person …
Sometimes there are time sucks that get in the way of my playwriting. When this occurs, I feel frustrated at my own lack of productivity. I may sometimes go down the rabbit hole into Twitter (I have quit Facebook), especially on a big news day. Other times, I’m surfing the internet, telling myself I’m doing research. HA! Freedom is a …
A truism we writers already know! Much research has been completed that demonstrates the link between an active mind and an active body. The simplest effect is that during exercise, blood flow increases to the brain. But according to an in-depth article from Ferris Jabr in The New Yorker, there’s much more going on when we’re walking. “Walking on a regular …
Here’s a little nudge from Noel Coward (Private Lives, Blithe Spirit) to encourage you to keep writing. “Work hard, do the best you can, don’t ever lose faith in yourself and take no notice of what other people say about you … Work is much more fun than fun.” (Photo: Gertrude Lawrence and Noel Coward in the Broadway production of …
Have you ever had an idea for a play (or any fictional story) that seemed workable, with a lot of promise … but you just couldn’t keep it going past the first two-dozen pages? I have. But I don’t like to get stuck in that situation, losing days or weeks writing something that doesn’t pan out. I’ve learned that I …