My Words Fly Up

I overwrite at times. I don’t mean long phrase-upon-phrase, clause-upon-clause, description-upon-description sentences as, say, Virginia Woolf does. If I were capable of writing sentences like this from Mrs. Dalloway— The British middle classes sitting sideways on the tops of omnibuses with parcels and umbrellas, yes, even furs on a day like this, were, she thought, …

Less Can Be More Read More »

I wrote a post a few months ago about how a children’s movie used an important plotting technique—that is, when a protagonist solves one problem, she or he should be confronted by a worse problem. Now advice from a documentary filmmaker, whose mother is a student of mine. Ginny was frustrated with the plotting of …

Hollywood Does It Again Read More »

Billy Joel was giving a master’s class at Vanderbilt University a few months ago. When a student asked Mr. Joel if he could accompany him on the piano, Mr. Joel said, “Okay.” (He discusses the experience briefly in this interview.) As you listen to the performance, you cannot doubt that the young man spends an …

One More about Practicing Read More »

This was published on the New York Times’ website the end of December 2012. Enjoy.

Further on the subject of practice. It may not necessarily make perfect (although a cat practicing the art of sleeping does appear to reach perfection), but practice does make better. And more practice makes better faster. That was, more or less, my daughter’s conclusion after completing an assignment for her high-school sociology class, which required …

Thirty Days Read More »

As I wrote earlier, I sometimes begin a new session of classes with a lesson I call Beginnings. And so I did again with the new winter class in Newburyport. Rather than going to the local bookstore to look for terrific openings, I checked books that either I, my son, or my daughter own. I …

Back to Beginnings Read More »

Yesterday I sent down to my agent the complete, revised manuscript of As the Crow Flies. I am sure Paige will make revision suggestions–and she is usually right on the mark with her suggestions–but I am pleased with this version. Now I can move on to my next book idea and get the characters that …

Patting Myself on the Back Read More »

A friend of mine took this photograph, one of about twenty he snapped of this grasshopper on a summer day. And one of the thousands and thousands and thousands of pictures he took over his lifetime. Just a visual example of that old joke: How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice.

As an editor, teacher, and writer, I always read with an eye toward learning about the writing craft. My books on writing could take flight in a strong wind, so many scraps of paper stick out of them, marking important points that I want to teach or use in my own work. The most easily …

Know Thy Characters Read More »

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXh7JR9oKVE Regardless of how you celebrate–or don’t celebrate–the holiday season, the “Hallelujah Chorus” from Handel’s Messiah is an amazing, uplifting piece of music. So enjoy this flash-mob performance of it–although since this video has had more than 40 million hits on YouTube, some of you may have already seen it.

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