Dan Jorgensen's Blog, page 365

'Choosing The Right Words'

“No matter how close to personal experience a story might be, inevitably you are going to get to a part that isn't yours and, actually, whether it happened or not becomes irrelevant. It is all about choosing the right words.“– Roddy Doyle
Born in Dublin, Ireland on this date in 1958, Doyle is an award-winning novelist, dramatist, and screenwriter.  The author of 11 novels for adults, 8 books for children, 7 plays and screenplays, and dozens of short stories, he has had several of his books and short stories adapted into films.  
A one-time secondary school teacher of both English and Geography, Doyle switched to full-time writing after his first three novels – collectively known as The Barrytown Trilogy – not only sold well but also were made into successful films.   His first book “as an independent writer” – Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha– not only was a huge marketing success but also won the prestigious Man Booker Prize, awarded annually to the best original English language novel published in the United Kingdom.
Doyle’s stories, built around heavy use of dialogue, primarily focus on the lives of working-class Dubliners with themes ranging from domestic and personal concerns to larger questions of Irish history.   “I tend to plan as I write. And I want to leave myself open and the character open to keep on going until it seems to be the time to stop."   “When I'm writing I just think there's only the page and me and nobody else.”



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A Writer's Moment: 'Choosing The Right Words'

A Writer's Moment: 'Choosing The Right Words': “No matter how close to personal experience a story might be, inevitably you are going to get to a part that isn't yours and, actually...

A Writer's Moment: Being A Champion For Libraries

A Writer's Moment: Being A Champion For Libraries: “What is more important in a library than anything else - than everything else - is the fact that it exists.” – Archi...

Being A Champion For Libraries

“What is more important in a library than anything else - than everything else - is the fact that it exists.” – Archibald MacLeish

MacLeish, one of the so-called “Lost Generation” of writers and artists who made Paris their home in the 1920s, followed a path leading from rebellious writer to (according to American Libraries)  “One of the hundred most influential figures in librarianship during the 20th century.”
Born in Illinois on this date in 1892, MacLeish served as Librarian of Congress and was instrumental in developing the position of U.S. Poet Laureate, a post he himself could have filled (but didn't) as one of the nation’s most renowned poetic writers. 
Associating himself with the Modernist School, he wrote so eloquently and powerfully that he ended up with dozens of prizes including two Pulitzers for Poetry and another for Drama.  His dramatic winner, the Broadway play J.B. – a modern day re-telling of the Book of Job – also won Broadway’s Tony Award.                                                   Often at odds with journalists, he once said, “Journalists don’t understand how poets work.  Journalism is concerned with events, poetry with feelings. Journalism is concerned with the look of the world, poetry with the feel of the world.  Poets are literal-minded men who will squeeze a word till it hurts.”


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Notes on 'The Amazing Nellie Bly'

“On the wagon sped, and I, as well as my comrades, gave a despairing farewell glance at freedom as we came in sight of the long stone buildings.”– Nellie Bly
That quote came from the beginning of one of the most harrowing experiences a writer can put herself into – undercover reporting in a dangerous setting.  And while it marked the start of a two-week living nightmare, it also would catapult her into the role of the most famous reporter of her day.
Born Elizabeth Jane Cochran on this day in 1864, Bly not only set the standards for how undercover journalism should be done, but also excited the nation’s imagination with the things she was willing to do to “get the story and bring the truth to the world.”
The opening quote above came from her smuggled notes out of the infamous Blackwell’s Island, a New York insane asylum. Her reporting blew the lid off the terrible ways the inmates were treated and led to vast reforms.  It was just the first of many things that this diminutive and imaginative reporter would do, including traveling around the world alone to break the record of the fictional Phileas Fogg in Jules Verne’s book Around The World in 80 Days.  She did it in just over 72.                                           Bly is a key character in my historical novel And The Wind Whispered, and I strived to keep her “character” true to the reality of this amazing reporter.  “Accept praise for it’s worth – politeness,” Bly said.  “And, be brutally frank with yourself.  It’s safer.” 
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A Writer's Moment: Notes on 'The Amazing Nellie Bly'

A Writer's Moment: Notes on 'The Amazing Nellie Bly': “On the wagon sped, and I, as well as my comrades, gave a despairing farewell glance at freedom as we came in sight of...

The Power of Words

“The more articulate one is, the more dangerous words become.”– May Sarton
Born on May 3, 1912, Sarton is often called a "poet's poet.”   Lauded for her works addressing themes of gender and sexuality, she had a 70-year career, starting writing as a teen.   She authored 17 books of poetry, 19 novels, 15 nonfiction works, 2 children's books, a play, and several screenplays, writing right up to her death in 1995.  For Saturday’s Poem, here is Sarton’s, 
                                Now I Become Myself
                             Now I become myself. It's taken
                             Time, many years and places;
                             I have been dissolved and shaken,
                             Worn other people's faces,
                             Run madly, as if Time were there,
                             Terribly old, crying a warning,
                             'Hurry, you will be dead before-'
                             (What? Before you reach the morning?
                             Or the end of the poem is clear?
                             Or love safe in the walled city?)
                           Now to stand still, to be here,
                           Feel my own weight and density!
                           The black shadow on the paper
                           Is my hand; the shadow of a word
                           Falls heavy on the page, is heard.
                           All fuses now, falls into place
                           From wish to action, word to silence,
                           My work, my love, my time, my face
                           Gathered into one intense
                           Gesture of growing like a plant.
                           As slowly as the ripening fruit
                           Fertile, detached, and always spent,
                           Falls but does not exhaust the root,
                           So all the poem is, can give,
                           Grows in me to become the song,
                           Made so and rooted by love.
                           Now there is time and Time is young.
                            O, in this single hour I live
                            All of myself and do not move.
                            I, the pursued, who madly ran,
                            Stand still, stand still, and stop the sun!

A Writer's Moment: The Power of Words

A Writer's Moment: The Power of Words: “The more articulate one is, the more dangerous words become.” – May Sarton Born on May 3, 1912, Sarton is often ...

A Writer's Moment: No Complainin' Here

A Writer's Moment: No Complainin' Here: “Why do people talk of the horrors of old age?   It’s great.   I feel like a fine old car with the parts gradually wea...

No Complainin' Here

“Why do people talk of the horrors of old age?  It’s great.  I feel like a fine old car with the parts gradually wearing out, but I’m not complaining.”– Martha Gellhorn

So, today I’m having another birthday, my 72nd, and still doing pretty good, and like Martha Gellhorn and my dad always used to say when asked that inevitable question, “How ya doing?” would simply respond “Can’t complain.”
And, one thing I look forward to doing each day is some writing.  I’m grateful that I was granted the ability and opportunity to put my thoughts, observations and actions down on paper or into a computer so that another person somewhere might have the chance to read those words and have a reaction to them.  It’s a pretty cool exchange and one of those things that make having “writers’ moments” worthwhile.                                                   I agree wholeheartedly, too, with a statement by Amy Tan who, when asked why she writes, said:  “I write because I know that one day I will die, and thus I should experience as many deliberate observations, careful thoughts, wild ideas, and deep emotions as I can before that day occurs.”
Me too.  So far, so good, and “can’t complain.”



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