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
Treat ’em mean to keep ’em keen
This made me laugh, Keats' pithy analysis of the source of English literary brilliance. There are several references in his...
A space filled to repletion
I like visual and typographical playfulness, and here in Orlando the point about economy in language is underlined not with...
Inkhorn in one hand, pen in the other
Orlando enjoys a portfolio career, as a courtier, a diplomat, a landowner, a lady under house arrest, but throughout, he-she...
The aim of aimlessness
This made me think - surrendering to aimlessness to write poetry (and other things? A good letter? A story?). Perhaps...
Key Penmanship Indicators (KPIs) – IV
That's it, isn't it, 'the authentic sunlight of life', when writing rings true like a fine china bowl resonating perfectly...
To see at a distance
Thoreau has many striking things to say about poets, and even if I can't seize on them as definitive or...
I wonder what you’ll do about money
A kindly concern on the part of T.E. Lawrence based on his appreciative reading of Williamson's Tarka the Otter before it...
Writers and the spirit of the age
This touches on the big question of how one retains one's independence while being a product of, or at least...
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...
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