An eclection of insights into the nature of writing and being a writer.
Of abundant overflow
What causes creativity to spring forth? I like Seamus Heaney's idea that it is not so much reactive as a generous overflow from an abundant internal source.This then is truly creative writing. It does arise from the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings, but the...
No post and plenty of censorship
We don't know how lucky we are, having access to many forms of communication, electronic or postal, and being free of censorship. Here Stefan Zweig describes the conditions in which he had to write The World of Yesterday, a moving, lucid account of his world and its...
Let the colour dry
An insight into technique by a superb poet, using a wonderful metaphor. Time fixes colours, in words as in paints, and you should let your work dry before you alter it. And decisions? Might the same principle apply?Poems, like water-colours, should be left to dry...
Life and Fate – documentary
Stumbled across an excellent documentary by Priscilla Pizzato, Life and Fate by Vasili Grossman (in French, with English subtitles) on the European channel Arte.tv. If you haven't yet read the book, this could be the trigger.Sorry to say this was only available...
All good publishers have a department of exceptions.
Gabriel Zaid – So Many Books
Poetry as a boat
Another maritime metaphor in Heaney's introduction to a poem set in a sea-world. The ‘big quay’ of language and literature can...
Power implied
Something whistlingly clean about this; good writing hitting its target with speed and precision, and a latent force behind every...
A perfectly healthy sentence
What a lovely thing, a perfectly healthy sentence summing up what it feels like when you read one. The poetry...
The sonnet never written
This is one of the longest and most entertaining chapters in Machado de Assis' novel Don Casmurro, a fictional memoir...
Key Performance Indicators (V)
This 16th century striking, simple verdict on the inaugural performance in Palladio's Teatro Olimpico could stand as an interesting test...
Architects of the human soul
On their month long trip to the Soviet Union in 1947, John Steinbeck and the photographer Robert Capa had several...
Roiling poetry
Written by a poet, this suggests that poems aren't written, but rather roil and form of their own volition. Having...
Focus your light
Wise guidance for writers. I like the way George Eliot calls herself to order and her self-reminder to focus, focus,...
‘Write,’ he said
A fine parting injunction to a friend you are seeing off at the train station. Julián did as he was...
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