Dan Jorgensen's Blog, page 2

A Writer's Moment: Creating 'Something to think about'

A Writer's Moment: Creating 'Something to think about':   “When I'm writing, I'm trying to immerse myself in the chaos of an emotional experience, rather than separate myself from it and l...

Creating 'Something to think about'

 

“WhenI'm writing, I'm trying to immerse myself in the chaos of an emotionalexperience, rather than separate myself from it and look back at it from adistance with clarity and tell it as a story. Because that's how life is lived,you know?” – Charlie Kaufman

Bornin New York City on this date in 1958 Kaufman is a screenwriter, producer,director, and lyricist who wrote the films Being JohnMalkovich, Adaptation and Eternal Sunshineof the Spotless Mind, for which he won an AcademyAward.   Those three scripts are all in the Writers Guild ofAmerica’s list of the 101 greatest movie screenplays ever written. 

 

Agraduate of NYU – Kaufman currently lives in California where he said of hiswriting, “Iwant to create situations that give people something to think about.”   

                                                    

“WhenI write characters and situations and relationships,” he said, “I try to sortof utilize what I know about the world, limited as it is, and what I hear frommy friends and see with my relatives.”

A Writer's Moment: 'It happens in layers'

A Writer's Moment: 'It happens in layers':   “Over the years, my students influenced me greatly, and I've learned many lessons from them. I have an immense amount of respect for t...

'It happens in layers'

 

“Overthe years, my students influenced me greatly, and I've learned many lessonsfrom them. I have an immense amount of respect for them, and I think thatrespect for your audience is the foremost requirement for anyone who wants towrite.” – Susan Campbell Bartoletti

 

Bornin Harrisburg, PA on this date in 1958, Bartoletti was a Junior High School teacherfor 20 years before turning to writing.  "I felt immensesatisfaction in watching my students grow as writers and I wanted to practicewhat I preached,” she said.   Her first short story sold in1989, her first children’s book, Silver at Night, in 1992. 

 

Thewinner of numerous awards including the Golden Kite Award for Nonfiction, theJane Addams Children's Book Award, and the Newberry Honor Medal, she stillteaches, but now her students are master’s degree candidates in various writingprograms or students in writing workshops around the nation.  Amongher 16 books are nonfiction bestsellers Growing Up in Coal Country and Kidson Strike and novels like Dancing With Dziadziu and No Man’sLand. 

 

Characterdevelopment has been a crucial part of Bartoletti's writing process.  “When I create a character, it happens inlayers,” she said.  “The more I write and revise, the better Iunderstand my characters.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Changing everything for everybody'

A Writer's Moment: 'Changing everything for everybody':   “Science fiction is any idea that occurs in the head and doesn't exist yet, but soon will, and will change everything for everybody, a...

'Changing everything for everybody'

 

“Sciencefiction is any idea that occurs in the head and doesn't exist yet, but soonwill, and will change everything for everybody, and nothing will ever be thesame again. As soon as you have an idea that changes some small part of theworld, you are writing science fiction. It is always the art of the possible,never the impossible.” – Ray Bradbury

 

Bornin Waukegan, IL in 1920, Bradbury was one of the most celebrated 20th- and21st-century Science Fiction writers, winning numerous awards, including a 2007Pulitizer Prize.  He also wrote and consulted on screenplays andtelevision scripts, including Moby Dick and It Camefrom Outer Space.  Many of his works were adapted to comic book,television and film formats.

  

And,of course, he wrote the dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 and theseries The Martian Chronicles. At the time of his death in2012, The New York Times called Bradbury "the writer mostresponsible for bringing modern science fiction into the literarymainstream."

    

 One of our country’s strongest advocates forthe public library system, Bradbury said he spent three days a week for 10years educating himself in the public library, “And it's better than college.People should educate themselves - you can get a complete education for nomoney. At the end of 10 years, I had read every book in the library and I'dwritten a thousand stories.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Use your words . . . and communicate'

A Writer's Moment: 'Use your words . . . and communicate':   “The aim of the poet, or other artist, is first to make something; and it's impossible to make something out of words and not communic...

'Use your words . . . and communicate'

 

“Theaim of the poet, or other artist, is first to make something; and it'simpossible to make something out of words and not communicate.” – JamesSchuyler

 

APulitzer Prize-winnng poet (for The Morning of the Poem), Schuyler wasborn in Chicago on Nov. 9, 1923.  Acentral member of the “New York School” in the 1960s and ’70s, he published hisfirst major poetry work Freely Espousing in1969.  For Saturday’s Poem here is Schuyler’s,

 

                                             The Day Gets Slowly Started

 

Theday gets slowly started.
A rap at the bedroom door,
bitter coffee, hot cereal, juice
the color of sun which
isn’t out this morning. A
cool shower, a shave, soothing
Noxzema for razor burn. A bed
is made. The paper doesn’t come
until twelve or one. A gray shine
out the windows. “No one
leaves the building until
those scissors are returned.”
It’s that kind of a place.
Nonetheless, I’ve seen worse.
The worried gray is melting
into sunlight. I wish I’d
brought my book of enlightening
literary essays. I wish it
were lunch time. I wish I had
an appetite. The day agrees
with me better than it did, or,
better, I agree with it. I’ll
slide down a sunslip yet, this
crass September morning.

A Writer's Moment: 'Delightful offerings of daily life'

A Writer's Moment: 'Delightful offerings of daily life':   Anybody who writes doesn't like to be misunderstood.” – Norman MacCaig   Born in Scotland on this date in 1910, MacCaig was a high...

'Delightful offerings of daily life'

 

Anybodywho writes doesn't like to be misunderstood.” – NormanMacCaig

 

Bornin Scotland on this date in 1910, MacCaig was a highly regarded teacher andpoet whose writing was known for its humor, simplicity of language and easyunderstandability.   Despite that, hisfirst book, Far Cry, published in 1943, was considered difficult toread.  So he listened to his critics and adopted a free verse style that was clear-cut andfilled with humor.

 

Atthe time of his death in 1996, fellow writer Ted Hughes wrote about MacCaigthat, “Whenever I meet his poems, I'm always struck by theirundated freshness; everything about them is alive, as new and essential, asever.”  

 

Forenjoyable poetic reads from his 5 decades of writing, check out ACommon Grace, A Man in My Position, and Ordinary Day, eachpresenting delightful offerings of daily life, people and the world.

 

“AllI write about is what's happened to me and to people I know,” MacCaig wrote.  “Thebetter I know them, the more likely they are to be written about.”