It’s Difficult To Write Underwater

Oh if only! Today, I’m 480 feet above sea level, and give or take 156 feet, you will find me at 39.983501°N 83.045066°W. This is my writing chair. I rarely get the chance to sit here anymore but when I do it feels like I’m taking my first breaths. Perhaps this has happened to you. [...]

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Jospeh Conrad – A Writer Must Believe

“Every novelist must begin by creating for himself a world, great or little, in which he can honestly believe.” ~ Joseph Conrad We all have a manuscript lying about in various stages of “unfinished”. Some are close to done with an ending just out of reach. Most are just fragments of characters or scenes stillborn [...]

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Mark Twain – Words Matter (Huckleberry Finn)

It’s just a little over 100 years since Mark Twain died and here he is right smack in the middle of a national debate on Race. There’s no doubt in my mind the man’s playing billiards in Hell and pleased as a cock who’s just woken up half a town of drunks on New Year’s [...]

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Mark Twain – Revising Or Combing It All to Hell

There’s great truth to striking while the iron is hot, but in the end you have to set yourself to the drudgery of revisions. I’ll use Mark Twain as an example here. Below, Twain is writing to William Dean Howells as he started writing Tom Sawyer. I have manuscript enough on hand now to be [...]

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Charles Dickens – Three Principles of Writing

Only jolter-headed, conceited idiots suppose that volumes are to be tossed off like pancakes, and that any writing can be done without the utmost application, the greatest patience, and the steadiest energy of which the writer is capable. ~ Charles Dickens To be fair, this quote took a little remanufacturing on the part of yours [...]

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