writing advice
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The Sound of Prose
You can’t find your own voice, unless you’re listening for it. In a thoughtful interview with radio host David Naimon, the lovely and wise Ursula K. Le Guin talks about her newly revised writing manual, Steering the Craft; the sound…
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On Becoming: Thoughts from Sheila Heti
And I just thought, “I have to teach myself how to write in a new way.” … I just wanted so badly to figure this out, to figure out how to write. As part of the Paris Review’s “My First…
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Book Titles Made Easy
For The Millions, Janet Potter offers a “handy” guide to help authors come up with catchy titles for books at various stages in their careers. For those writing “the disappointing sophomore effort,” Potter advises: Get out your favorite album. Rank the…
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By Bukowski’s Rules
On Writing, a new collection of musings on the writing life by Charles Bukowski, is coming out on August 27th from HarperCollins. In the meantime, you can head over to Lit Hub to find a preview of the book disclosing the master’s…
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Bukowski On Writing
I didn’t pay a hell of a lot of attention to grammar, and when I write it is for the love of the word, the color, like tossing paint on a canvas, and using a lot of ear and having…
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Getting Write With Yourself
Do you need to be right with yourself in order to write best? Is it a matter of ego or an issue of the industry? Two views on the relevance of self-loathing to writing creatively in the New York Times.
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When to Trash Your Novel
How does a writer come to the conclusion that the a novel-in-progress needs to be ditched? Over at Lit Hub, Laura Dave reflects on the cathartic despair and relief of making the big decision: It’s hard to pinpoint the exact moment…
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Novelist Anne Roiphe on 50 Years of Writing
After her first marriage to a writer ended when she was twenty-seven, Roiphe decided to tell her story in the autobiographical novel, Digging Out, and it launched her long, successful career: I look at the long shelf of books I…
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How to Fail at Writing about Movies
If I have any advice, now, for writing about other media, it’s this: Go ahead and try.
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Don’t and Won’t
Over at the Louisiana Channel, Lydia Davis throws some advice at young writers. Among other tokens: read the books you want to write.
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Well-Rounded
At The Millions, Kelly Link talks about her new story collection Get in Trouble, writing fantastical fiction, and being a teenage mall rat. Perhaps best of all, she gives this excellent piece of writing advice: Of course the strengths of…
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Eschew Beastly Adjectives
A rediscovered 35-year-old letter from Roald Dahl dispenses advice to a young writer in his trademark irascible fashion. After scolding the letter writer for “asking to much of [him],” Dahl offers this and other craft gems: . . . eschew…