Dan Jorgensen's Blog, page 118

A Writer's Moment: 'Capable of working magic'

A Writer's Moment: 'Capable of working magic':   “What an astonishing thing a book is. It's a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dar...

Maintaining our freedom

 

“Freedom is never free.”

Veterans’ Day and I‘m grateful for all who havesacrificed and continue to serve to keep our country free and safe, whether onthe battlefield or in support roles here at home.   For Saturday’s Poem, here is Robert Frost’s,

                                             TheSoldier

He is that fallen lance that lies ashurled,
That lies unlifted now, come dew, come rust,
But still lies pointed as it ploughed the dust.
If we who sight along it round the world,
See nothing worthy to have been its mark,
It is because like men we look too near,
Forgetting that as fitted to the sphere,
Our missiles always make too short an arc.
They fall, they rip the grass, they intersect
The curve of earth, and striking, break their own;
They make us cringe for metal-point on stone.
But this we know, the obstacle that checked
And tripped the body, shot the spirit on
Further than target ever showed or shone.

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A Writer's Moment: 'Expanding experiences and opportunties'

A Writer's Moment: 'Expanding experiences and opportunties':   “Literature overtakes history, for literature gives you more than one life. It expands experience and opens new opportunities to readers....

'Expanding experiences and opportunties'

 

“Literatureovertakes history, for literature gives you more than one life. It expandsexperience and opens new opportunities to readers.”—CarlosFuentes
Born on Nov. 11,1928 novelistand essayist Fuentes wrote The Death ofArtemio Cruz – often called THE seminal work of modern Spanish Americanliterature – and The Old Gringo, also made into a terrific movie.   
The Guardian called him "Mexico'smost celebrated novelist,” perhaps in part because of his being honored by hishome nation with its highest civilian award, the Belisario Domínguez Medal ofHonor.   He often was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature, though he never won (the Nobel isonly awarded to living artists and writers and he died in 2012).
Fuentes described himself as a"pre-modern" writer, using only pens, ink and paper. He asked, "Do wordsneed anything else?" Fuentes said that he detested those authors who fromthe beginning claim to have a recipe for success. In a speech on his writingprocess, he related that when he began the writing process, he began by asking,"Who am I writing for?" Translated into 24 languages withsales around the globe in the     many millions, Fuentes hated being pigeonholedinto one classification or another.  “I'ma writer, not a genre. Don't classify me, read me.”  As for advice to young writers, he saidsimply, “I am not interested in slice of life, what I want (from a writer) is aslice of the imagination.”

A Writer's Moment: '50 words a day is all it takes'

A Writer's Moment: '50 words a day is all it takes':   “When we talk about good books, we often talk about good sentences, but what we rarely talk about is reader pleasure. Yet it is reader pl...

'50 words a day is all it takes'

 

“Whenwe talk about good books, we often talk about good sentences, but what werarely talk about is reader pleasure. Yet it is reader pleasure that is goingto make a book break out into the kind of success that makes it into ahousehold name.” – Holly Black
 Born on this date in 1971, Black authored The Spiderwick Chronicles, a series of children'sfantasy books she created with writer and illustrator Tony DiTerlizzi.  But, it’s her 2013 novel Doll Bones that made the biggest splash, earning her a NewberyMedal honor.   A prolific writer, she's authored dozens of short fiction and poetry works and three dozen novels, the most recent being The Stolen Heir in her "Books of Elfhame" series. 

A native New Jerseyan and graduate of The College of New Jersey, she started her career as a medical bookseditor then broke onto the creative writing scene in 2002 with Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale.  The book won a handful of awards and startedher down a distinguished writing path.   Every one of her books has won some sort of award, led by the resoundingsuccess of Doll Bones.                                                   
Black’s advice to new writers is to not let writing overwhelm you.  “Can you write 200 words a day? 100?50? In six months, 50 words a day is 9,000 words,” she said.  “That's 2-3 short stories. If you did 200words every day, in three months that's 36,000 words. That's half a shortnovel.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Citizenship - A tough occupation'

A Writer's Moment: 'Citizenship - A tough occupation':   “Citizenship is a tough occupation which obliges the citizen to make his own informed opinion and stand by it.” – Martha Gellhorn Ge...

'Citizenship - A tough occupation'

 

“Citizenshipis a tough occupation which obliges the citizen to make his own informedopinion and stand by it.” – Martha Gellhorn
Gellhorn was born in St. Louis on this date in 1908.  And while she was raised in the heartland of America she became a product of and reporter onthe world; doing some of the finest reporting, news and feature writing ever done byan American journalist.  
She wrote about every topic from government to society, but it was her war correspondence for which she is most noted, reporting on every major world conflictthat took place during her 60-year career (she died in 1998 at age 90).   In 1999 The Martha Gellhorn Prize inJournalism (given annually for reporting excellence) was established in hermemory and honor.
Along the way she also became a partof the lore surrounding Ernest Hemingway, ultimately becoming his thirdwife.  Both were reporters on the Spanish Civil War and World War II, although it may have been their competition as writersthat eventually caused them to drift apart. 
Gellhorn brought new passion anddepth to her war coverage stories.  Herbook, The Face of War, is one of thebest you’ll ever read about this remarkable reporter’s work.  It’s both a chronicle and a primer oneffectively writing about conflict, its terrors, and aftermath.Although newswriting was her careerfield,                     she also published books of fiction, did travel writing andwrote reams of correspondence.  Herselected letters were published posthumously in 2006.    “I have no intention,”she once stated, “of being a footnote in someone else’s life.” 

A Writer's Moment: 'A worthwhile and meaningful endeavor'

A Writer's Moment: 'A worthwhile and meaningful endeavor':   “To share our stories is not only a worthwhile endeavor for the storyteller, but for those who hear our stories and fee...

'A worthwhile and meaningful endeavor'

 

“Toshare our stories is not only a worthwhile endeavor for the storyteller, butfor those who hear our stories and feel less alone because of it.”– Joyce Maynard

Born on Nov. 5, 1952 Joyce Maynard is known for her works of fiction, herhundreds of essays and newspaper columns, often about parenting and family.

 

She has distinguished herself for anumber of critically acclaimed books in several different genres ranging fromYoung Adult, to Crime, General Fiction and Memoir. And she has had considerablesuccess as a screenwriter.   Her newestbook is The Bird Hotel, and in 2024she’s set to release How The Light GetsIn, a sequel to her international award-winning book Count The Ways.

 

Her memoir At Home In The World about her years living with reclusive authorJ.D. Salinger drew both praise and scorn from the literary world.  “I wonder what it is that the people whocriticize me for telling this story truly object to: Is it that I have dared totell the story? Or that the story turns out NOT to be the one they wanted tohear?”

 

As for her works on parenting, shesaid raising three kids influenced those writings and helped the writing becomestronger. “It's not only children who grow. Parents do too,” she said.  “As much as we watch to see what our childrendo with their lives, they are watching us to see what we do with ours. I can'ttell my children to reach for the sun. All I can do is reach for it myself.”

 

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