Category: Articles and Essays
-
Inspiration
The Dance, a video that my friend who is a dancer sent me is still churning my unconscious and causing me to reflect upon my own life story. Like most writers I suffer from depression. And not unlike many writers, my childhood was not the idyllic one American culture says we are to have.
-
“The Dance,” Courage and Writing
A friend who is also a dancer sent me this video, The Dance. After Tweeting it, I now have to say that the story told in the video is so much like writing. What you see is a woman in her 30’s performing a modern dance routine with a man who has one leg. Surprisingly…
-
Our Bodies, Our Temples
We go through this rhythm as writers and artists–that of taking in and then purging or rather creating. Reading fiction and also poetry, visiting museums, listening to music–all of these activities are the various wells from which we draw water and replenish our unconscious.
-
Our Characters’ Fears
Identifying our character’s fears is like uncovering the groundswell of what drives her or him to act and speak as she or he does in order to accomplish their larger goals. On another level it’s like discovering why we feel compelled to write.
-
Uncertainty
Setting out to write a story or novel is one of the most difficult tasks a person can undertake. Several things make the work hard, one of which is uncertainty. We start out at the beginning of a story, thinking we know where we are going, holding some idea of where we’d like to travel.
-
No Escape
Writing is exhilarating. Crafting stories holds a rare type of excitement. And yet it can, and often stirs a fair amount of discomfort within the writer. Much of the angst we experience when writing relates to the aspect of revising, choosing the write word and phrasing, re-ordering paragraphs, re-scripting and re-organizing scenes.
-
The Suffering of Our Protagonist
The word protagonist is rooted in the word agony, pain, and suffering. Protagonist means principal, or leading character. Good stories depict a central character in struggle, usually a fight for her or his life on some level. Memorable stories depict this main character rising above their pain oftentimes by helping others.