April 30, 2009 Let’s face it. An economy in shock is not such a shock if you are not only a writer, but a writer from and remaining in the working class. I am not allergic to the thought of making big money with my writing. Not at all. But the real joy… Continue reading Money and writing. Writing and money. Research, Truth, and Imagination.
Category: Creative Process
Despair, Joy, Complexity: Against writing default endings to fictional stories.
March 19, 2009 (coincidentally, the day before spring) Interesting times, no? Hope? Change? Doom? Restorative justice? Innocence Project? Families Destroyed. New Kinds of Families Being Created. War Crimes. Truth and Reconciliation. Environmental Destruction. Melting Ice Caps. Reclaiming the Rainforest. Greening the World. Financial Collapse. Greening the Economy. Dying… Continue reading Despair, Joy, Complexity: Against writing default endings to fictional stories.
Reading at Banfill-Locke Center for the Arts
March 10, 2009, Below is an announcement for a reading this Friday in the Minneapolis area, near the astonishing Mississippi River. I am racing to do too much. Little wheels spinning like a cartoon character. Haven't posted. Great excuses. The world is the biggest. Visiting my senator (we still only have one in Minnesota), and… Continue reading Reading at Banfill-Locke Center for the Arts
Dead white English writer, and your sense of time and story structure.
Dear Writers, I have a confession. I am in love with a dead white English guy, a writer. If it isn’t love, at least it is a shock of recognition, a wave of gratitude at being seen, the kind of amazement when someone brings something into words that illuminates, or puts into relief, or gives… Continue reading Dead white English writer, and your sense of time and story structure.
Writer’s Block versus The Head Cornerstone! A mighty battle!
July 30, 2008 Dear Writers, I wouldn’t exactly say I am on a roll, like some blog-crazy youngster, but I do feel the need to write more on writing, this big mystery, not as great a mystery as determining the location and nature of evil, or understanding what love actually is, but it is a… Continue reading Writer’s Block versus The Head Cornerstone! A mighty battle!
Character’s voice? Neruda said, “Speak through my words and my blood.”
I want to respond to something someone suggested about my book, The Stories of Devil-Girl, and then get to what I really want to talk about, which has to do with the process of writing strong characters, and the profound reasons for doing so. The statement said something to the effect that this character of Devil-Girl,… Continue reading Character’s voice? Neruda said, “Speak through my words and my blood.”
How can we know the writer from the dancer?
I am thinking that every act is a creative act. Only some creative acts provide an opening into something vital; other creative acts provide duplication, follow the path of habit, add to repetition, create walls - solidity - separation from the vital and the as yet unborn. And some acts, of course, create destruction. So,… Continue reading How can we know the writer from the dancer?
Good-bye to the blink of an eye year; taking hold of this one coming, to step fully into writing.
I wrote the below last week, in a snowstorm. I want to remind you to check the previous post, some good newsy stuff to notice, and to let you know that Grand Web Master Brian Tanaka has pointed to January 11 for the likely release of The Stories of Devil-girl novella-download, so expect more news soon. In the… Continue reading Good-bye to the blink of an eye year; taking hold of this one coming, to step fully into writing.
Back to the Invisible: the intersection of truth and the poetic art
Neruda suggests in his poem Arte Poetica from the first volume of Residencia en la tierra published in 1933, that the poetic art, or at least the poet, works and flounders and suffers "Between shadow and space, young girls and garrisons", which calls to my mind, somehow precisely, the situation of 4 young Muslim men from England,… Continue reading Back to the Invisible: the intersection of truth and the poetic art
The Invisible: Burning cereal and the creative process. And 2 poems out in Poet Lore.
So captured by the possibility of having a communal talk in cyberspace about this mystery of writing, that I am writing this, freewriting this onto the site, and it is, except in cyberspace, invisible. And this is what this posting is about, the invisible. And its power. We know that at the moment we are at… Continue reading The Invisible: Burning cereal and the creative process. And 2 poems out in Poet Lore.
Anya Achtenberg 