Dan Jorgensen's Blog, page 362

A Writer's Moment: Exploring The 'Fluidity' of Language

A Writer's Moment: Exploring The 'Fluidity' of Language: “I have always loved the fluidity of language - delighting in dialects, dictionaries, slang and neologisms.” – Ben Sc...

Exploring The 'Fluidity' of Language

“I have always loved the fluidity of language - delighting in dialects, dictionaries, slang and neologisms.” – Ben Schott

Born in London on this date in 1974, Schott combined his love of both writing and photography into his successful career as author of the Schott's Miscellanies and Schott's Almanacseries.
The Miscellanies grew out of his creation – and self-publication – of cards for his friends that contained booklets of what he considered vital but hard to find information.   It wasn’t long before one made it into the hands of a publisher who not only saw the brilliance of what Schott had devised but also its marketability.   Within months the first edition – Schott’s Original Miscellany – had risen to the top of bestseller lists and was spun off into Schott’s other books.        His Almanacs share the same look and feel as his 4-book Miscellanies series – only substantially longer and larger.   Among the books’ subjects are The World; Society; Media & Celebrity; Music & Movies; Books & Arts; and Science & Technology.  Each also includes an “Ephemerides” section containing traditional almanac information on dates, moon phases, and the season.
“For me,” Schott said, “writing is like being taken on a walk by a footnote: It's amazing where you end up.”

Writer’s Moment with a friend at http://writersmoment.blogspot.com

A Writer's Moment: 'Every Day Is The Best Day'

A Writer's Moment: 'Every Day Is The Best Day': “Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson Emerson, born on this date in 1803, was t...

'Every Day Is The Best Day'

“Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.”– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emerson, born on this date in 1803, was the first American to advocate for Americans to develop a writing style of their own; to create “American” writing and not just copy that of their forebears from other parts of the world.

One of the first writers to keep journals, influencing his great friend Henry David Thoreau to do the same, Emerson’s journals and notes ultimately were published in 16 volumes by Harvard University Press and are considered to be his key literary works – even though that was not his intent.  “I just wanted to maintain a record of the things that were important to my life,” he wrote.   As it turned out, they are things that have influenced generations of writers both in their content and the practice of journaling itself. 
Ralph Waldo Emerson[image error]A teacher as well as writer and scholar, he was a staunch supporter of education for girls and women and helped found a Massachusetts school for girls.  And, from the mid-1840s on, he was a national leader of the abolitionist movement.  Known for his kindness and support of others, he said simply, “You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.”

A Writer's Moment: Finding Natural Inspiration

A Writer's Moment: Finding Natural Inspiration: “If you get simple beauty and naught else, you get about the best thing God invents.     – Robert Browning     Photo by Dan Jorgensen...

Finding Natural Inspiration

“If you get simple beauty and naught else, you get about the best thing God invents.

   – Robert Browning

 [image error]  Photo by Dan Jorgensen
  "The clouds gathering."  Looking west from the Colorado prairie near Fort Lupton toward Long’s Peak.  As a writer, whenever I find myself stuck, I know I can always turn to nature to provide the necessary inspiration for my writer’s moments.
Find a point of inspiration and you will never be left wondering where to “refill the tank” when you feel your writing coming up empty.  Happy Writing!
Writer’s Moment with a friend at http://writersmoment.blogspot.com

A Writer's Moment: Fools Rush In - And Write

A Writer's Moment: Fools Rush In - And Write: “No one should be ashamed to admit they are wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that they are wiser today than...

Fools Rush In - And Write

“No one should be ashamed to admit they are wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that they are wiser today than they were yesterday. Teach me to feel another's woe, to hide the fault I see, that mercy I to others show, and that mercy show to me.”  – Alexander Pope
Pope, born on this date in 1688, is credited with some of the most lasting and well-used sayings in our lexicon:  “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread”  “To err is human, to forgive devine” “Hope springs eternal in the human breast” being just a few.
Mostly self-educated, he taught himself Latin and Greek while studying the works of Homer and Virgil and the great English writers Chaucer, Shakespeare and Dryden.  Fascinated by languages and how they related to one-another, he also learned French, German and Italian, thus was able to read all the great works of literature in the languages in which they were first written.
His writing drew the attention of all the other great writers of his era, who not only befriended him but also pointed him toward a pathway of poetic writing.  An essayist first, he set a new style and standard by writing his essays—including the esteemed An Essay on Criticism – in the poetic form known as the heroic couplet.  His mastery of that form led to his being the second-most frequently quoted writer in the Oxford Dictionary, only after Shakespeare.  He also is credited with creating the woman’s name Belinda, used in one of his writings.
 “True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,” he wrote,  “just as those move easiest who have learned to dance.”

A Writer's Moment: Writing For The Ages

A Writer's Moment: Writing For The Ages: “The great thing about using the past is that it gives you the most colossal freedom to invent. The research is necessary, of course, but ...

Writing For The Ages

“The great thing about using the past is that it gives you the most colossal freedom to invent. The research is necessary, of course, but no one writes a novel to dramatically illustrate what everybody already knows.”– Peter Carey

Born in May 1943, Carey is Australia’s next contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature, having already won the Miles Franklin Award three times and the prestigious international Booker Prize twice.   Those latter awards came for his bestselling novels Oscar and Lucinda and True History of the Kelly Gang, also made into an award-winning movie.                                      The author of 21 books, several short story collections, and numerous screenplays, he has been honored as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, an Honorary Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, a member of both the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Letters.  He is one of just two living Australians to be represented on postage stamps as an "Australian Legend." 
In addition to his writing, Carey serves as executive director of the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program at Hunter College at the City University of New York.   “I'm interested in where we are, where we're going, where we've come from,” he said of his motivation for writing.  “So in the first draft, I'm inventing people and place with a broad schematic idea of what's going to happen. In the process, of course, I discover all sorts of bigger and more substantial things.”

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          
Writer’s Moment with a friend at http://writersmoment.blogspot.com