Posts Tagged ‘craft of writing’
GET INSPIRED BY ARCHITECTURE #5 A BENCH IN SEOUL Learning to Stop.
#5 A BENCH IN SEOUL Learning to Stop. By Mary Rakow, Ph.D. A friend sent this photo from a hotel in Seoul where he was staying, knowing I’d love it, and I do! Why? It’s the direction of the bench. That it’s not facing the elevators. The bench has no arms, no back so our…
Read MoreBE INSPIRED BY ARCHITECTURE #1 INTRODUCTION
by Mary Rakow I look at this image every day because it reminds me to focus–in my life, my work, in the kind of person I want to be. This particular image of this particular building in this particular location does this more than any other image I have. Physical buildings can show us the…
Read MoreThe City Our Writing Teacher: Success as Disintegration
by Mary Rakow We see disintegration in the city all the time. New objects become trash. Dumpsters fill up and are emptied. Streets are torn up, sewer lines replaced. Cars fall apart, are repaired. But we shy away from disintegration because it’s scary. We can’t control it. We don’t know where it’s going. And as…
Read MoreTHE CITY OUR WRITING TEACHER—Fidelity/Place of Refuge
By Mary Rakow There’s a reason why writers, composers, architects and mathematicians wander a lot. When creative people are “in the zone” and we get out, we stop thinking directly about our project. And that’s when we see our teachers everywhere! Bar, beauty parlor, church. This happens because workshops, editors, conferences are all wonderful resources…
Read MorePlanning your novel? Or pantsing?: The eternal battle of logic vs. intuition
by Grant Faulkner I’m often asked whether a writer should plan their novel—or how they should plan their novel— or, if they plan their novel, how much they should plan their novel, and many other questions about planning, pantsing (writing by the seat of your pants), and plantsing (somewhere in between planning and pantsing). It’s…
Read MoreMaybe you’re not stuck: 5 solutions for writers block
Do you ever find yourself saying that you feel stuck? Or blocked? Maybe you are. But maybe something else is going on. Take Bee, who said she’d scheduled two hours to write only to sit at her computer for two hours, staring, thinking, writing nothing. I suggested Bee commend herself for taking that time at…
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