A friend of mine mentioned recently that he’d heard too late about the “10-10-10” challenge, in which readers committed to reading ten books a month for the first ten months of 2010. I heard about it too late, too — I heard about it through my friend, in fact — but I wouldn’t have participated.Continue reading “11-11 reading challenge”
Tag Archives: nonfiction
A Writer’s Notebook: a reading meme
Okay, this is perhaps cheating slightly, because a meme is hardly a writing exercise, right? Except that it is. I’ll explain more below, but for now, let’s call this a review of my influences. I should also preëmptively explain that this meme is made rather tricky because I have to qualify my answers: When itContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: a reading meme”
Writing the year away: My year in words and numbers
This year has been the first full calendar year that I’ve spent focused exclusively on writing. I’ve actually been doing this since summer 2009, and though I’ll still be exclusively writing in spring 2011, I’m anxious to get back into the classroom (I miss students and the intellectual discourse of academia!). But in terms ofContinue reading “Writing the year away: My year in words and numbers”
Bad Writing
Point me to the advance ticket sales, please! Dan Chaon posted this on his Facebook page, which is where I found it. Sounds like a fantastic (and potentially depressing) jaunt into cold, blinding reality. A bit like “the Bulwer-Lytton contest meets 90% of all graduate writing workshops.” Which is exactly how I’d have pitched this.Continue reading “Bad Writing”
A Writer’s Notebook: My nephew’s assignment
Yesterday, my sister sent me an e-mail which contained a story my nephew Aidan had written. His story was about a string, and it reminded me of my own string story, which I began to write for my nephew. And then–because Aidan’s story was a school writing assignment–I realized this would make an excellent Writer’sContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: My nephew’s assignment”
10 tips on writing from the Chronicle of Higher Ed
One of my professors from graduate school posted on her Facebook a link to an article, “10 Tips on How to Write Less Badly,” in the Chronicle of Higher Education. It’s a strange title, partly because the URL truncates the title to read “10-Tips-on-How-to-Write-Less,” which is precisely the opposite of this article’s purpose: The tipsContinue reading “10 tips on writing from the Chronicle of Higher Ed”
A Writer’s Notebook: The great outdoors
This is a fairly old-school, simple exercise, but it’s one I keep returning to again and again. But as usual, more on that below. I’ve never seen the skies in other vast states, like, say, Wyoming or Montana, but I’ve seen skies in California, skies in New York, skies in Wisconsin and Florida. And itContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: The great outdoors”
A Writer’s Notebook: Found dialogue
The following conversation is not one I invented. I made up the characters and the situation, but the dialogue already existed. But I’ll explain below. Jacob smiled and leaned across the table. “It’s terribly funny,” he said. He winked. Sebastian shook his head. “You are pulling my leg.” Jacob only grinned. “You exaggerate!” Sebastian said. “SurelyContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: Found dialogue”
A Writer’s Notebook: Capt. Snoek, the elder: Adventures at sea with Ted Snoek’s father (Pt. 2)
Today, we’re we should have been on our way home from the Netherlands (see the note at the bottom), so I’ll conclude the story of my great-grandfather and return to other writing exercises next week. As with last week’s entry, I’m still working from the basic interview-storytelling exercise I mentioned in the first “Capt. Snoek”Continue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: Capt. Snoek, the elder: Adventures at sea with Ted Snoek’s father (Pt. 2)”
A Writer’s Notebook: Capt. Snoek, the elder: Adventures at sea with Ted Snoek’s father (Pt. 1)
Because we’re in the Netherlands, land of my ancestors, I thought I’d continue the story of my great-grandfather William Karel Snoek, Sr., who left his home in Hoorn, Holland at the age of 12 and took to a life at sea. There is no new exercise this week, though–I’m still working from the basic interview-storytellingContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: Capt. Snoek, the elder: Adventures at sea with Ted Snoek’s father (Pt. 1)”
Samuel Snoek-Brown 