A love letter to readers
When writers say they don’t care about feedback (or sales), they are probably lying.
All posts tagged: Writing
Why I write
In my journey to write with clarity and passion, I often turn to what others have to say. I look for inspiration in works such as Yale’s Why I Write series. Writing should be easy, you say. Just turn on the computer and start typing, right? Or go old school, pull out the legal pad, and put pen to paper. Easy peasy. Getting a bad first draft can be fairly effortless for me. I did it with this short post, for instance. In a rush, I unfortunately called it a day and hit publish. Wrong decision. Writing well, as opposed to simply writing, is hard. Understanding why one is compelled to write can be an even more difficult journey. In many ways, each of us needs to answer that particular question, which differs individual to individual, before good writing truly begins to sing. I came to pick up the slim volume entitled Devotion by the musician and author Patti Smith because I was looking for inspiration and answers to those questions of how and why. …
Why sentences?
A student asks, “Do you think I could be a writer?” The writer responds, “Well, do you like sentences?”
The Gap Year Chronicles
At some point in describing my “not quite” retirement after 42 years in preservation, I began to refer to what was next as the “gap year” I never had in my 20s. It was said only partially in jest. Gap years are a first world phenomenon that—as far as I was concerned—didn’t exist in my middle class/public school upbringing in Tennessee in the 1970s. At least they didn’t exist for a young man who wanted to get on with his career (the ambitious slice of my personality); who, as the number two child/son, always did what was expected and “right” (the getting the job done segment of my personality); and, finally, who needed a job to pay the bills (the persistent part of my personality coupled with the reality of rolling off the family payroll). But here I am, having said “I’m taking a gap year” enough that it has become a reality, even for me, and I’m working on understanding what it all means. Will this period cover a full year? To be honest, …
Writing, briefly. Writing well.
I am a frustrated writer. Not the kind who needs to work on The Great American Novel (or TGAN)*. If I wanted to write fiction — great or otherwise — there are plenty of models to follow, such as Flannery O’Connor’s habit of three-hours of writing first thing every morning, or advice to be found in places like Annie Dillard’s eloquent The Writing Life and Cheryl Strayed’s direct and somewhat salty response (be forewarned) to a young aspiring writer. No, I want to be able to write essays, blog posts, magazine articles, reports, letters, and speeches that pull people in, make them care about the topic at hand, show a bit of my personality, and only say what needs to be said and nothing more. If you have similar aspirations, you may not want to take advice about writing from a computer programmer, but let me suggest that Paul Graham — a programmer, writer, and investor who helped co-found Y-Combinator, a new type of startup investment firm — should be the exception. In a tiny …
More to Come... 