The items began collecting in 1994 when I decided to keep my first letter and some photographs from a girl I’d met one summer, which was also her name. The shoe box is filled with envelopes and corresponding letters written in girls’ handwriting, ticket stubs from concerts and baseball games, birthday cards signed by people I remember and some I don’t, and paper scraps with a young man’s wisdom written on them. The young man thought they were worth holding onto. (more…)
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Tags: Thoughts on Writing
During a typical workday, it’s hard to say how many words I write. For the page, it can be anywhere from zero (depending on my meeting schedule) to 2,000 or so. I have no idea where that number would stand if e-mail were factored into the final tally. I’m not sure I’d want to know. In the last 11 years as a professional writer, I’ve developed my own processes and theories to abide by in this trade, but in preparing for a recent presentation on writing instruction, I came across George Orwell’s rules for effective writing. I wasn’t aware that he’d shared his theories so plainly. I also wasn’t familiar with the exchange between Faulkner and Hemingway described in this article about Orwell’s approach. My thoughts on Hemingway have been mostly middling, but this story is literary gold.
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The first draft is written from the heart. The second draft is written with thought. When the heart is uneasy, there is only stunted paragraphs, ill-conceived ideas, and over-beautiful phrases authored by a writer who is trying with force to color his paper with black marks. Words from the struggling writer might as well come from another person – one who has never considered the world, exposed and loved its flaws and has never been discouraged by its most brutal ones, then wanted to tell about it. The mind, then, is reliant on the heart to attach itself to a subject so the words can be unstopped, assuming the writer does the most important step, which is to write. The mind but it still tries to rise when the heart is at work. All that matters in writing begins with the heart. (more…)
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