Dan Jorgensen's Blog, page 355

Icon Of An Age

“Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold.”– Zelda Fitzgerald
Born in Alabama on this date in 1900, Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald was a prominent Socialite noted for her beauty and high spirits, and was dubbed by her husband Scott as "the first American Flapper.”  She and Scott became emblems of The Jazz Age, for which they are still celebrated.                                        A great writer of journals, she is often credited with providing key material for her husband’s book  This Side of Paradise.  He also often used her as the inspiration for his other key female characters, including Daisy in The Great Gatsby.  Her own artistic endeavors included a semi-autobiographical novel, Save Me the Waltz, a play entitled Scandalabra, and numerous magazine articles, short stories and paintings.
She said her life was meant to be “lived!” especially through love of those around her.   “I don't want to live. I want to love first, and live incidentally.”





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A Writer's Moment: Icon Of An Age

A Writer's Moment: Icon Of An Age: “Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold.” – Zelda Fitzgerald Born in Alabama on th...

A Writer's Moment: Finding A Pathway To Writing

A Writer's Moment: Finding A Pathway To Writing: “Any setting can be a good setting for a novel.” – Chris Pavone Best-selling author Pavone says there are plenty of paths to becomin...

Finding A Pathway To Writing

“Any setting can be a good setting for a novel.” – Chris Pavone
Best-selling author Pavone says there are plenty of paths to becoming a writer . . . “but I think the most reliable ones involve total commitment: writing for magazines and newspapers, teaching writing, editing books, representing authors.” Born on this date in 1968, Pavone grew up in New York City, where he still makes his home.  He graduated from Cornell University and was a book-publishing editor for nearly two decades before deciding to leave his “editor” pen for a “writer” version.  “I had 12 different job titles in publishing before I typed ‘The End’ at the bottom of a manuscript page,” he said.  “I thought the manuscript was in great shape; I was pretty proud of myself.  Then I sent it to some publishing friends and they tore it apart.” 
A humbling experience most first-time authors face and from which many don’t recover.  Not Pavone, he took the suggestions to heart, went back to work and produced the multiple-award winning The Expats, a best-selling thriller that has now led to 4 additional books including his newest (published just two months ago), The Paris Diversion, a sequel to Expats.                                      Pavone said working at publishing houses was a great incubator for his writing because he came into contact with so many great books, ideas and authors.  At the same time he saw the opposite side and was faced with putting a damper on writers’ dreams.  “I spent nearly two decades . . . mostly as an acquisitions editor,” he said.  “But a more accurate title might be rejection editor:  while I acquired maybe a dozen projects a year, I’d reject hundreds upon hundreds.”

“I always wanted to write. But honestly I'm glad I didn't do it back when I was twenty-five or so, when it's now clear to me that I was a very poor writer and could've ruined my career before it even started.”


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A Writer's Moment: Honing The Writing Craft

A Writer's Moment: Honing The Writing Craft: “I went into journalism to learn the craft of writing and to get close to the world I wanted to write about - police and criminals, the cr...

Honing The Writing Craft

“I went into journalism to learn the craft of writing and to get close to the world I wanted to write about - police and criminals, the criminal justice system.   I still look at a newspaper as the center of a community.  It's one of the tent poles of the community, and that's not going to be replaced by web sites and blogs.”– Michael Connelly

Connelly, born on this date in 1956, decided to become a writer after discovering the crime mysteries of Raymond Chandler while attending the University of Florida.  Majoring in journalism and minoring in creative writing, he excelled at both.  He started his career as a newspaper reporter, working in Daytona Beach and Fort Lauderdale and specializing in the crime beat, of course – Chandler’s influence shining through.  Eventually he landed at the Los Angeles Times and then started writing creatively in what would make him a household name – mystery and crime fiction.   I was first drawn to Connelly’s writing because of his “newspaper style” – concise, to the point, and riveting.  When I read Blood Work, one of the cleverest ideas for a mystery I’d seen, I was really hooked.  
Translated into 39 languages, his books have garnered every major award for mystery and crime writing, and he has served as President of the Mystery Writers of America.   Besides being a journalist, Connelly said a great incubator for being a writer is simply to BE a writer.  “You need to write.  Even if it's just one paragraph, write every single day."
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A Writer's Moment: Reaching Into Space

A Writer's Moment: Reaching Into Space: On this 50 th anniversary day of the first Moon Landing, it seemed appropriate to share John Mageee Jr.’s beautiful “High Flight" fo...

Reaching Into Space

On this 50th anniversary day of the first Moon Landing, it seemed appropriate to share John Mageee Jr.’s beautiful “High Flight" for Saturday's Poem.
Pilot Officer John Gillespie Magee, Jr., a China-born American was serving with the Royal Canadian Air Force during the Battle of Britain when he wrote this poem in 1941.  The son of missionary parents, Magee studied at Yale, and in September 1940 enlisted in the RCAF where he was graduated as a pilot.  He composed “High Flight” a couple months before his death on December 11, 1941 when his Spitfire collided with another plane over England.  
    Magee was just 19 when he died.   He is buried in England.                          
            High Flight
  Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,                         And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds -
and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of -
wheeled and soared and swung high in the sunlit silence.
Hovering there I've chased the shouting wind along
and flung my eager craft through footless halls of air.     Up, up the long delirious burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace,
where never lark, or even eagle, flew;
and, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
the high untrespassed sanctity of space,
put out my hand and touched the face of God.

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Every Reader Is 'An Intelligent Reader'

“The beautiful part of writing is that you don't have to get it right the first time, unlike, say, a brain surgeon. You can always do it better, find the exact word, the apt phrase, the leaping simile.” – Robert Cormier
An author, columnist and reporter, Cormier was known for his brilliantly crafted, yet oftentimes deeply pessimistic, downbeat literature. But his most popular works continue to resonate with his mostly Young Adult audience nearly 20 years after his death.  I Am The Cheese, After the First Death, We All Fall Down and The Chocolate War all won major awards, and I Am The Cheese is considered one of the best Young Adult novels of the past 75 years.
Cormier began his professional writing career scripting radio commercials and went on to become an award-winning journalist. And even though he became widely known, writing 18 novels and countless short stories, he never stopped writing for his local Massachusetts newspaper, the Fitchburg Sentinel and for those youthful readers who made up the core of his fan base.                             “I simply write with an intelligent reader in mind,” he once said.  “I don't think about how old they are or where they might live.  And all the stories I'll ever need are right here on Main Street.” 
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A Writer's Moment: Every Reader Is 'An Intelligent Reader'

A Writer's Moment: Every Reader Is 'An Intelligent Reader': “The beautiful part of writing is that you don't have to get it right the first time, unlike, say, a brain surgeon...