My friend Lori Ann Bloomfield and I have been swapping e-mails about writing exercises lately (from which exchanges I’ve cribbed some of this post). We were talking about first lines, and I mentioned that my story “Bathe in the Doggone Sin” started out as a first-line exercise. Which got me thinking about writing exercises inContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: Introduction”
Category Archives: writing
I wish I was cool enough to quote LL Cool J
I’ve said in previous posts that I’m a bit of a number cruncher. But there’s one number that I always avoided crunching: the ratio of my submissions to my rejections. I know without looking that the number is high. It’s bound to be–competition is fierce, and rejection is practically as much a part of theContinue reading “I wish I was cool enough to quote LL Cool J”
Writing as work; or, a new literary daydream
Wish I could claim this idea as my own, but I can’t. In fact, it’s a kind of convoluted web of connection, appropriate to the Internet but a bit confusing. I was reading a recent entry in the terrific little blog Literary Rejections on Display, which was in turn a reference to an e-mail commentingContinue reading “Writing as work; or, a new literary daydream”
Patrons of writing and teaching: St. Francis de Sales and St. John the Apostle
I’ve been writing off and on about my “patrons of writing,” but I feel I need to acknowledge that, for me, the term I chose comes from Christianity, specifically Catholicism and Orthodoxy, and the Christian notion of “patron saints.” So I figure it’s about time I mention a couple of my Christian patrons. According toContinue reading “Patrons of writing and teaching: St. Francis de Sales and St. John the Apostle”
“They said my writing was funny, just not ‘Archie Comics’ funny”: How to read a rejection letter
One of my early mentors once told me he’d rather get a handwritten rejection than a form-letter acceptance. It’s a great line. It speaks so well to the kind of personal attention we crave as writers. If we’re in any way professional about our work, we know that editors and agents are so overwhelmed withContinue reading ““They said my writing was funny, just not ‘Archie Comics’ funny”: How to read a rejection letter”
New publication
Just a quick note to say I have a new publication online. Something like two years ago, a friend of mine in Wisconsin, Russ Brickey, had the idea to start a regional literary magazine, which he decided to call Driftless Review after the geological region where our little town lived. He also kindly enlisted myContinue reading “New publication”
Patrons of writing and teaching: Anansi
Since February is Black History month in the US, I thought I’d write about another of my writing patrons, Anansi the Spider, King of Stories. I first learned of Anansi from my college friend Moses Elango, who is from Cameroon, but many people encounter Anansi long before their college years: Anansi is a common figureContinue reading “Patrons of writing and teaching: Anansi”
A Clean, Well-Lighted Place*
Just about every book on writing you’re likely to ever pick up will begin with this advice: Find a place to write. It’s strange advice, in some ways, because the most important thing about writing should always be the writing — the words themselves — which means it shouldn’t matter where you write or even howContinue reading “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place*”
Good-bye, Mr. Salinger
J. D. Salinger is dead. We can’t say the world will miss him, because we’ve been missing him for almost 40 years. And if Hemingway’s example is anything to go by, I hope we never do see the novels he never intended us to read, for the sake of his legacy. But he did leaveContinue reading “Good-bye, Mr. Salinger”
Patrons of writing and teaching: Thoth
Among the many, many files on my computer, I have a collection of seemingly frivolous notes and scribbles related to writing, which I insist are vital to what I do and will someday, surely, come in handy. Mostly, I’m wrong. But every now and then, as I’m cleaning out my files and tossing the listsContinue reading “Patrons of writing and teaching: Thoth”
Samuel Snoek-Brown 