tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-147061802008-07-03T09:50:38.916-04:00Bruce Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13184015349784934372noreply@blogger.comBlogger154125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14706180.post-67649637391094450212008-06-29T08:00:00.001-04:002008-06-29T08:30:04.301-04:00

One of the results of writing a novel versus writing a short story is that, aside from the loneliness of the extended stretches of time that you work on your own, you begin to take--by necessity--a longer view of the process. You can't look to finishing your novel as a form of gratification because the end is too far away. But you can reach a certain number of words or pages each day. You can

Bruce Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13184015349784934372noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14706180.post-28813230335607971462008-06-01T08:00:00.001-04:002008-06-01T08:12:11.765-04:00

The oldest of four children, Kerry Madden spent much of her youth telling stories to her younger brothers and sister, and when she was asked to clean the kitchen, she “made up stories... to escape the drudgery of my own life.” Those early years helped her learn the secret to finding her voice–a voice as rich and captivating as two of Madden’s favorite authors, Flannery O’Connor and Harper Lee.

Bruce Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13184015349784934372noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14706180.post-46739349918734198862008-05-25T08:30:00.001-04:002008-05-25T08:36:46.776-04:00

When you revise your work-in-progress--a novel, say, that you’ve spent three years fleshing out--and you reach the stage where you're replacing deleted words and phrases with new inserts, you may find that you "see" only bits and pieces of the story without getting a chance to enjoy the flow of the narrative. This late stage of the process is so much different than earlier stages when you revise

Bruce Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13184015349784934372noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14706180.post-35311884322512513652008-05-18T07:00:00.005-04:002008-05-18T07:46:54.476-04:00

In "Trust or Bust," a chapter in Danny Gregory's The Creative License, he discusses Keith Jarrett and his 1975 album, The Koln Concerts, an album that Gregory calls the "best-selling solo piano album ever." "What's extraordinary," writes Gegory, "was that the music on the album is purely improvised." If you want to learn to improvise, to reach that place where you are totally immersed in the

Bruce Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13184015349784934372noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14706180.post-5075476117566525732008-05-11T08:00:00.001-04:002008-05-11T08:07:58.428-04:00

The point is not to overcome your self-doubts about being an artist. The point is to move through your self-doubts. Many of us believe that "real artists" do not experience self-doubt. In truth, artists are people who have learned to live with doubt and do the work anyway. (from Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way) How do you know if your work is any good? Every writer asks this question--or one

Bruce Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13184015349784934372noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14706180.post-23546593190845740782008-05-04T07:00:00.000-04:002008-05-04T07:06:54.341-04:00

History comes alive in the hands of Kathleen Ernst, the author of more than a dozen novels, including Hearts of Stone (Dutton, 2006), set in Tennessee during the Civil War, and her newest novel, The Runaway Friend, an American Girl Mystery, which takes place on the Minnesota frontier in 1854. It was Ernst's love of history that led her to her first job after college at a living history museum in

Bruce Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13184015349784934372noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14706180.post-22768987566636793232008-04-27T07:30:00.000-04:002008-04-27T07:32:36.110-04:00

Have you ever brushed up against a barrier reef that prevents you from swimming any further? Whenever that happens to me, I find it helpful to switch directions and alter my course. If I'm working on a novel, I'll switch to a short story, or turn to my journal, or search through old files to explore long-forgotten works-in-progress. But sometimes switching directions isn't enough. I have to

Bruce Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13184015349784934372noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14706180.post-75685056658900775212008-04-18T16:15:00.006-04:002008-04-18T18:44:12.213-04:00

Almost every story has an emotional arc, a trajectory that the reader can trace–like the flight of an arrow–as the character makes his or her journey through the story. This arc is the spine of the story, the backbone that gives the story its shape as the action rises and falls, depending on how near or far the character is to reaching her heart’s desire. Sometimes you can chart the trajectory

Bruce Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13184015349784934372noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14706180.post-19358613097504807092008-04-13T07:30:00.001-04:002008-04-13T07:41:20.830-04:00

It’s easy to forget where a story takes place when you’re deeply engrossed in a character’s struggle. But place–like character and plot–is one of the essential elements of a story, and, if you ignore it or treat it like a simple backdrop, you’ll miss the chance to deepen your reader’s experience of your story. Every story must have a setting, a place where the action occurs. “Setting exists so

Bruce Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13184015349784934372noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14706180.post-23117719255662395002008-04-06T08:00:00.002-04:002008-04-06T08:06:00.267-04:00

Jo Knowles, the author of Lessons from a Dead Girl (Candlewick, 2007), grew up reading lots of books, but it wasn't until high school, when she came across Robert Cormier's The Chocolate War, that she turned from a reader into a writer. "There is something about the raw truth of that book," Knowles says, "that showed me how powerful words can be." Knowles admits that she writes because she "

Bruce Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13184015349784934372noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14706180.post-40239574784255340742008-03-30T09:00:00.002-04:002008-03-30T12:32:01.360-04:00

Thaisa Frank, the author of three collections of short stories, is the co-author with Dorothy Wall of Finding Your Writer's Voice. She has won two PEN awards for her stories, has a new story coming out in an anthology with Bloomsbury Press (edited by Ellen Sussman) in May, 2008, and teaches part-time at the University of San Francisco. A few weeks ago, she was kind enough to share a few

Bruce Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13184015349784934372noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14706180.post-33230652749702423972008-03-23T07:30:00.005-04:002008-03-23T07:18:38.083-04:00

At the start of Sherman Alexie’s remarkable YA novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Arnold Spirit, Jr.’s life is one of poverty and despair, and the 14-year-old has no expectations that his life will be any different than it’s been for his father or mother or grandmother or any of the other Native American Indians whose ancestors were imprisoned on reservations centuries ago.

Bruce Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13184015349784934372noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14706180.post-82064944712353742472008-03-16T07:30:00.000-04:002008-03-16T07:20:16.475-04:00

Herbert Kohl, the founder of Teachers' and Writers' Collaborative, has written more than forty books, including A View from the Oak, which he wrote with his wife, Judith, and which won the National Book Award for children's literature. In his newest book, Painting Chinese: A Lifelong Teacher Gains the Wisdom of Youth, Kohl describes his journey into the unfamiliar terrain of aging as he searches

Bruce Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13184015349784934372noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14706180.post-48725438670215180662008-03-09T07:30:00.001-04:002008-03-09T07:43:42.262-04:00

The author of the highly acclaimed Miss Spitfire: Reaching Helen Keller, Sarah Miller is the kind of writer who tries to write six days a week, having "figured out that even writing badly feels better than being mad at myself for skipping a day." When writing, she likes to explore the lives of real people ... "people I'm fascinated with and become quite fond of by the time I'm done." "It's

Bruce Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13184015349784934372noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14706180.post-54959858028112315222008-03-02T07:00:00.001-05:002008-03-03T08:58:14.621-05:00

What does making a Cat's Cradle--a game that children play with string--have to do with writing (aside from serving as yet another way to procrastinate)? Well, a few weeks ago, while preparing a lesson for my local library's young writers workshop, I was looking for a way to help the children better understand the structure of stories. Exploring structure, I felt, would give the children a

Bruce Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13184015349784934372noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14706180.post-24508291412259821362008-02-24T07:00:00.003-05:002008-02-24T06:49:29.696-05:00

It all comes down, in the end, to breathing, and your ability to close your eyes and focus on your breath. Following your breath will lead you to that place where you can find your center. It’s there, finally, where you can truly find your story and discover how the lives of the characters inhabiting it are linked to the breath of life that sustains all beings. It’s the breath that lets you

Bruce Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13184015349784934372noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14706180.post-74866457723971354442008-02-17T07:30:00.005-05:002008-02-17T08:09:01.465-05:00

"It would take a whole book to chart the brilliant deviations the voice can take to prevent its owner from being known."--Iris Warren, voice teacher (from Finding Your Writer' s Voice by Thaisa Frank and Dorothy Wall) When I use my voice to speak, I'm engaging in a different process than the one required to "hear" my voice inside my head as I write words on paper. As I speak, I need to think

Bruce Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13184015349784934372noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14706180.post-16873646666261251722008-02-10T08:00:00.000-05:002008-02-10T07:53:07.135-05:00

Gloria Whelan is the kind of writer who doesn't merely write stories, she inhabits them, creating imaginary worlds in places as far-away as Russia, China, India, Turkey, and Mali, as well as closer to her home in northern Michigan. "When I find the world I want to ... live in," writes Whelan, "I have no trouble sitting down each day to the computer. My only worry is if I can communicate what I

Bruce Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13184015349784934372noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14706180.post-91634291280819808522008-02-03T07:15:00.000-05:002008-02-03T07:12:49.258-05:00

Mark Kramer and Wendy Call, the editors of Telling True Stories: A Nonfiction Writers' Guide, have invited more than fifty writers--from investigative reporters and magazine editors to filmmakers and poets--to share their thoughts on telling stories. So, whether you're trying to tell "true stories" or fiction, you'll find a good deal to admire and study in this book from the Nieman Foundation at

Bruce Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13184015349784934372noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14706180.post-22332519164547811572008-01-27T07:00:00.000-05:002008-01-29T14:00:40.246-05:00

"Genuine communication," writes Christina Feldman in the Beginner's Guide to Buddhist Meditation (Rodmell Press), "is a two-way process.... We often listen in only a perfunctory way, straining to find the moment when we can interject our own words." She offers this and many other insights--ranging from strategies for calming one's mind to meditative-like thoughts about the simplest acts of daily

Bruce Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13184015349784934372noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14706180.post-4922978525095065032008-01-20T07:45:00.000-05:002008-01-20T08:05:20.572-05:00

T. K. Welsh's imagination is inhabited by ghosts and filled with mysteries. His first book for young adults, The Unresolved--an "unconventional ghost story" (Horn Book) which the Washington Post named one of the top ten children's books of 2006--retells the sinking of the General Slocum steamship from the point-of-view of a fifteen year old girl who drowns in the 1904 calamity considered one of

Bruce Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13184015349784934372noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14706180.post-38904372801465552682008-01-11T14:30:00.000-05:002008-01-11T14:27:43.519-05:00

Writing stories--and how one learns to do it--is so elusive. Can anyone explain the actual process of learning to write... or fully understand how a child--how anyone, really--finds words and manages to put them down on paper? If you followed the postings at Wordswimmer over the summer, you know that I spent part of July and August at the local library teaching children (ages 7 to 12) how to

Bruce Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13184015349784934372noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14706180.post-35048924417741021162008-01-06T08:30:00.000-05:002008-01-06T12:51:15.568-05:00

One of my friends who happens to be a fine YA novelist often finds herself bewildered by the notion of structure. "I suck at structure," she laments each time she reviews one of her works-in-progress. "What is structure, anyway?" It's a question every writer has to ask at some point in the writing process... in order to understand why a story works or fails to work. If you feel your story

Bruce Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13184015349784934372noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14706180.post-8020863044996559852007-12-30T08:45:00.000-05:002007-12-30T08:41:51.042-05:00

Every writer wonders, I suspect, if his or her words create any ripples... and if those ripples ever reach the hearts of readers. Over the past year, I know, there were days--more days than I care to admit--when I felt like my words made no sound whatsoever. As I tossed them into the pond, they simply sank to the bottom without creating so much as a ripple. On the most difficult of days, I

Bruce Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13184015349784934372noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14706180.post-6817071822218157072007-12-16T07:30:00.000-05:002007-12-16T08:11:59.641-05:00

Over the past few years we've had the good fortune of swimming with the help of beacons whose light has kept us from venturing too far into murky waters. As 2007 comes to an end and we pull ourselves out of the water to dry off over the next few weeks, I'd like to thank all of the writers--the extraordinarily generous beacons of light--whose insights and thoughts on writing have enabled us to

Bruce Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13184015349784934372noreply@blogger.com