While I believe in protecting one’s ideal writing and creative time, I’m an equally strong proponent of working outside those times. Challenging oneself is necessary. It teaches a person to work regardless of the external situation.
writing life
Burnout
Burnout. Noun. The sensation that a tire is about to blow, the house is about to catch on fire, someone you love, maybe yourself, is about to crash and burn. [Read more…] about Burnout
National Poetry Month 2013
This National Poetry Month, I’ve decided to focus on a few poets who have contributed to the way I write or to the way I think about writing. It should be an interesting exercise because it’s difficult to limit myself to a few poets. I start with one and find myself referencing another. I start with a single idea and end up with ten or more. The ideas proliferate, like rabbits or the never-ending, multi-colored scarf.
Has Anyone Ever Told You to “Find Your Voice”?
Today’s post is by Jim Dougherty.
Has anyone ever told you to “find your voice“? It’s a curious bit of opaque advice that people like to share, but what does it really mean? Does it mean that you should write about the things that interest you? Does it mean you should become an indignant, uncompromising (underappreciated) artist? Does it mean you should find a voice that someone else wants you to have?
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How I Edit
For a creative person, the difference between reading “You suck!” and reading “Here’s where I think you made some wrong decisions” is the difference between being shamed into crawling under the covers and never putting their work out there ever again, and being encouraged to make their product better. We should always, always aim to do the latter. – Rian
I have an odd relationship with editing, primarily because I’ve followed different veins of it. I’ve been a copy editor for a newspaper (Ancient history, but still.). I’ve been an editor for a few journals, mostly ones from my undergraduate and graduate school days. I’ve also been an editor of other people’s writing, both their professional or creative work.
Writers Have to Read
I believe writers have to read. I don’t have scientific data to prove the “why” of the claim; I only know that my writing improves the more I immerse myself in the writing of others. Such writing may be easy to read, and some of it may be difficult. Almost all of it makes me uncomfortable in some way. It challenges me to think through a subject, to explore how ideas in the work interact with my own, or to study how the writing itself works. As I do so, my own work grows. It initially takes on characteristics of what I’m reading, then my writing absorbs what I’ve learned and experienced. The form becomes something that is mine, something that is distinctively “Erin.”