Category: writing

  • Residency day 3

    The day began with Jeff Parker’s seminar on “repetition” which he turned into a seminar on “not-knowing/repetition” building a great deal off of the essay “Not Knowing” by Donald Barthelme, an author I’ve found I greatly enjoy. A handful of good things and Parker ran his seminar a bit more like a seminar, although having…

  • Beautiful sentences

    So what people think makes you special is just the disappointment of their own lives. Robert Vivian, The Mover of Bones.

  • Pixar rules of plotting

    A useful guide for plotting from Emma Coats. Via Kottke.

  • Beautiful Sentences

    The question is not, he said, were you loved. Or did you love. Or did you love yourself. Or did you allow love to move you, though that’s a big one. Move you. The question, Rockwell, is did you get to be who you are And if not, then why. That, my friend, is the…

  • Girning

    I’m always on the lookout for new words, opportunities to push the boundaries of my vocabulary, so when I encountered the word “girning” in an A. S. Byatt short story, I had to make a note of this one. In the context, it was a whining or complaining sound (made, in this case by a…

  • Beautiful sentences

    I’ll immortalize you, you’ll become the book I was always meant to write, the one where the forgeries of our humanity become the timeless tragedies of our race. Robert Vivian, The Mover of Bones.

  • Beautiful sentences

    A man retains the structure of integrity, even after he has sold off the shelves of goods that integrity insisted should never be sold. Michael Winter, The Big Why.

  • Beautiful sentences

    In the matter of belief, I have always found that defenses have the same irrelevance about them as the criticisms they are meant to answer. Marilynne Robinson, Gilead.

  • How a book is born

    Amusing and accurate infographic.