Dan Jorgensen's Blog, page 57

A Writer's Moment: It's 'the most notable moment'

A Writer's Moment: It's 'the most notable moment': "In every phenomenon, the beginning remains always the most notable moment.  Everywhere in life, the true question is not what we gain,...

It's 'the most notable moment'

"Inevery phenomenon, the beginning remains always the most notable moment. Everywhere in life, the true question is not what we gain, but what wedo."  - Thomas Carlyle 

 

Bornin Scotland on Dec. 4, 1795, Carlyle was a philosopher, teacher and journalistwhose work influenced a generation of Victorian era writers, including CharlesDickens and Ralph Waldo Emerson.  

 

Hewas mesmerized by the concept of how "heroes" in our world shapedpeople’s hopes and aspirations and created the basis for great writing - orwriter’s moments, if you will.  Primarily an essayist for severalmajor newspapers, he also wrote a dozen books, the most famous being OnHeroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History. 

 

Beyondhis writing, Carlyle was a champion for the establishment of greatlibraries.  Often frustrated with the lack of good books in society,he was instrumental in founding the London Library and making books availableto a broader reading public.

 

“Inbooks lies the soul of the whole Past Time; the articulate audible voice of thePast, when the body and material substance of it has altogether vanished like adream," he wrote . "The greatest university of all is a collection ofbooks.”  

'First for yourself, then for your audience'

 

“I think people become consumed with selling a book when they need to be consumed with writing it.    Write because you love the art and the discipline, not because you're looking to sell something.” – Ann Patchett
Born in Los Angeles on this date in 1962, Patchett is winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award for her novel Bel Canto, and numerous accolades for The Magician's Assistant, also shortlisted for the Orange Prize, one of Great Britain’s most prestigious writing awards given annually to a female author of any nationality.
The daughter of novelist Jeanne Ray she had her first article published in the Paris Review when she was just 20 years old.  After working for Seventeen magazine for 9 years, she began her creative writing career with the novel The Patron Saint of Liars, which had modest sales but hit it big as a movie adaptation.
Also the editor of a short story collection, she opened her own bookstore in her hometown of Nashville, Tenn., when other stores were closing down and leaving few outlets for writers’ work.  In 2012 she was named by Time magazine as one of the "100 Most Influential People in the World." 
“I don't write for an audience,” Patchett said when asked that question.  “I don't think whether my book will sell, (and) I definitely don't try selling it before I finish writing it.

A Writer's Moment: 'First for yourself, then for your audience'

A Writer's Moment: 'First for yourself, then for your audience':   “I think people become consumed with selling a book when they need to be consumed with writing it.     Write because you love the art and ...

A Writer's Moment: 'A way of facing life . . . and history'

A Writer's Moment: 'A way of facing life . . . and history':   “Poetry is not only a set of words which are chosen to relate to each other; it is something which goes much further than that to provide ...

'A way of facing life . . . and history'

 “Poetry is not only a set of words which are chosen to relate to each other; it is something which goes much further than that to provide a glimpse of our vision of the world.” – Tahar Ben Jelloun

A Moroccan whose first language is Arabic, Ben Jelloun has established his writing chops with work entirely in French. Born on this date in 1944, he started to write articles and reviews for the French newspaper Le Monde, while earning a doctorate degree in social psychiatry. In 1985 he published his first novel The Sand Child, which was widely celebrated, and in 1987 his second novel The Sacred Night won the major French writing award the Prix Goncourt.  
Both novels have now been translated into 4 dozen languages.
He also has earned acclaim for his efforts [image error]to foster peace and friendship among the Arabic and non-Arabic worlds and to fight injustice and racism through his essays and poetry, a medium he finds particularly powerful and recommends to all writers.
"I came to poetry through the urgent need to denounce injustice, exploitation, humiliation. I know that's not enough to change the world. But to remain silent would have been a kind of intolerable complicity,” he said.   “For me, poetry is a situation - a state of being, a way of facing life and facing history.”

Cold Moon on the rise

Today, I heard a story onthe radio that said December’s “Cold Moon” was coming, signaling winter’sarrival.  The story reminded me of May Sarton’s poem “December Moon.”  Sarton was born Elinore Marie Sarton in Belgiumin 1912.  She and her family moved to England at the outset of WWI and then on to Boston in1915.  She not only became a deeplyengrained New Englander but also one of America’s greatest and most prolificpoets, writing as “May,” the month of her birth.

 

So, on this Black Fridayweekend as we leave Thanksgiving and autumn behind, spiraling toward our first“winter month,” here Sarton’s poem,

 

DecemberMoon

Beforegoing to bed
After a fall of snow
I look out on the field
Shining there in the moonlight
So calm, untouched and white
Snow silence fills my head
After I leave the window.

Hours later near dawn
When I look down again
The whole landscape has changed
The perfect surface gone
Criss-crossed and written on
Where the wild creatures ranged
While the moon rose and shone.

Why did my dog not bark?
Why did I hear no sound
There on the snow-locked ground
In the tumultuous dark?

How much can come, how much can go
When the December moon is bright,
What worlds of play we'll never know
Sleeping away the cold white night
After a fall of snow.

A Writer's Moment: Cold Moon on the rise

A Writer's Moment: Cold Moon on the rise: Today, I heard a story on the radio that said December’s “Cold Moon” was coming, signaling winter’s arrival.  The story reminded me of May S...

A Writer's Moment: 'Never hope more than you work'

A Writer's Moment: 'Never hope more than you work':   “Art is moral passion married to entertainment. Moral passion without entertainment is propaganda, and entertainment without moral passion...

'Never hope more than you work'

 

“Art is moral passionmarried to entertainment. Moral passion without entertainment is propaganda,and entertainment without moral passion is television.” –Rita Mae Brown

 

Born in Pennsylvania onNov. 28, 1944 Brown is a writer, activist, and feminist who first earnedacclaim for her novel Rubyfruit Jungle.  She’sbeen on many bestseller lists for her two long series’ of mystery novels, the“Mrs. Murphy” and “Sister Jane” series.  Her most recent books are 2023’sLost and Hound in “Sister Jane” and 2024’s Feline Fatalein the “Mrs. Murphy” series.

 

Over the years Brown hasinterspersed her more than 50 books of mystery and suspense with 10 screenplays,several books of poetry, 4 nonfiction pieces, and 10 screenplays, two of which earned her   Emmy nominations.  Her I Love Liberty story and screenplay got both an Emmy nod and a Writer’s Guild of America Award.  

 

“Creativity comes fromtrust,” Brown said.  “Trust your instincts. And never hope more thanyou work.”