Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Blog”
The things we want to be disciplined at are actually fairly simple in a lot of ways, writes Leo Babauta. We want to be consistent with the journaling habit, or meditation, or writing? Just start, as simply as possible. Do that again the next day. If you miss a day, no problem — just start again. Over and over. All …
I find information about the subconscious and creativity enormously interesting. I have learned that giving requests to my subconscious before bed, then meditating on them and writing them down in the morning, is a way to rewire the brain for creativity. “Never go to sleep without a request to your subconscious.” — Thomas Edison I take a few moments before going …
I’m enjoying rereading David Edgar’s “How Plays Work,” which is packed with delicious information and knowledge. He writes in the chapter on Genre, of the importance of what people (characters and audience members) know when, which he calls the “choreography of knowledge.” His example is one of my favorites: “It’s worth noting how brilliantly Sophocles choreographs the information available to …
One of the things I do when I write a play is assemble a Tumblr with all of my inspirations and research. It helps me keep everything in one place while I write. It’s also invaluable as a place to refer those people who ask, “What inspired you?” or don’t believe you when you write, for example, character who’s stalked …
The poem, “Lines Written Near San Francisco,” by Louis Simpson, is a work of stunning anxiety. Perfect for pandemic times, I’m afraid. My favorite passage: Whitman was wrong about the People, But right about himself. The land is within. At the end of the open road we come to ourselves. Read the whole thing here.
Ever wish you had a personal coach or even a personal nag who would stand behind you and make you write when you don’t want to? Maybe I do, too. I’m sometimes good at self-motivating … and sometimes terrible. That’s why I’m glad I came upon the idea of a “commitment device.” A commitment device is different than a motivation …
This poem by Maggie Smith resonated strongly with me. “This place could be beautiful, right?” Life is short, though I keep this from my children. Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways, a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative …
The refusal to acknowledge names – particularly women’s names – runs deep. And hurts, deeply. This poem was written by Lucille Clifton upon her own visit to a plantation. She noticed a cemetery for enslaved people. The dead were unnamed. Inside the plantation house, she was shown documents that enumerated enslaved people, but just men. The women were unnamed. at …
What’s the best motivator of all? Money? Bragging rights? Satisfaction for a job well done? Well… no. If you’re anything like me, none of these hold a candle to the ultimate motivation. It’s humiliation. (Or the threat thereof.) If you can orchestrate events so that the fear of being humiliated by not writing is greater than the fear of having …
Your great mistake is to act the dramaas if you were alone. As if lifewere a progressive and cunning crimewith no witness to the tiny hiddentransgressions. To feel abandoned is to denythe intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,even you, at times, have felt the grand array;the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowdingout your solo voice. You must notethe way the soap …