From the category archives:

Tips

Exercise and Writing: Majoring in the Minors

September 8, 2010

Image via Wikipedia I cannot believe I am even putting these two activities together in a title. Individually, each carry enough anxiety to my heart and in some cases a huge amount of disappointment. At any given point in time, there is a huge possibility that goals set for either task are slipping further and [...]

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“Our doubts are traitors…” Measure for Measure (I.iv.77)

August 11, 2010

Image via Wikipedia In his collection of journals entitled Confessions of a Barbarian, the twenty-five-year-old Edward Abbey ponders the progress he is making on his first novel: “The novel, my terrible novel, will drive me to ruin…A frightful labor! “And the worth of it, the quality—the problem worries me night and day. At times I’m [...]

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The Truth About Workshops

August 9, 2010

Taking a manuscript into a critique workshop is an expedient and sometimes necessary step to understand how readers view and respond to any given piece you’ve written. At their best, a workshop is a coming together of equally skilled and similarly committed writers under the guidance of a master of the trade, both as writer [...]

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The Pitfalls of “Originality”

July 28, 2010

One of the distinguishing features of modern society is our preoccupation with originality. Giving proper credit to the creator of something is the basis of everything from copyright law and patent offices to anti-plagiarism policies in high schools and universities. Much of this stems from an artist’s desire to get noticed in some way (as [...]

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Workshops

July 26, 2010

Image via Wikipedia I recently attended a weeklong workshop at the venerable University of Iowa.  This was my second year, and it seemed this time around more was gained from the experience.  It was an advanced short story workshop.  Here are a few of the insights I took away. Keep your promises.  The craft books [...]

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