An eclection of insights into the nature of writing and being a writer.
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...
Missing homework
Here Steinbeck suffers a bout of exam nerves before being bombarded with highly intellectual questions from his counterparts in the Soviet Union, particularly regarding 'American writing', which for some reason they expected him to know something about. As he says, if...
Four years old today!
Today is Shakespeare's birthday & ours! The WritingRedux literary ink-fest is 4 years old with 2000+ dazzling illustrated quotes, reviews and other bright writing delights. Sign up for regular mind-feast despatches to hone your wits and lift your...
All good publishers have a department of exceptions.
Gabriel Zaid – So Many Books
Time and poets
This summary of where Mandelstam places the poet versus the ‘man of letters’ on the time spectrum intrigues me. Yes,...
Forgetting and forgetfulness
I like this questioning of cause versus effect in the writing - and reading - of novels. Does writing and...
Safe rendering
The Russian author Vasily Grossman here resists editorial efforts to render the first of his Stalingrad novels, For a Just...
Key Penmanship Indicators (KPIs) – III
I like this aesthetic amalgam proposed by Harold Bloom – another high-held yardstick by which to measure quality of writing.
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Heroic journals
All laud to Labaume, going to such heroic lengths to write his journal. I will have to introduce this makeshift...
Of centuries and cows
These quirky comments by Steinbeck charmed me - first his reaction to the first room he chose to work in,...
Life and Fate – documentary
Stumbled across an excellent documentary by Priscilla Pizzato, Life and Fate by Vasili Grossman (in French, with English subtitles) on...
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...
Stories as therapy
The story as a means to bear sorrow is an idea I'd like to believe, but can't quite relate to...
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