Dan Jorgensen's Blog, page 65

A Writer's Moment: That 'familiar daily struggle'

A Writer's Moment: That 'familiar daily struggle':   “If someone is alone reading my poems, I hope it would be like reading someone's notebook. A record. Of a place, be...

That 'familiar daily struggle'

 

“Ifsomeone is alone reading my poems, I hope it would be like reading someone'snotebook. A record. Of a place, beauty, difficulty. A familiar daily struggle.”– Fanny Howe

 

Born in Buffalo, NY on Oct. 15, 1940Howe is a recipient of the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, presented by the PoetryFoundation to a living U.S. poet for lifetime achievement.   One of America’s “most read” experimentalpoets.  Also a prolific novelist, she hasauthored more than 30 books of poetry and prose. 

 

For Saturday’s Poem, here isHowe’s,                 

Footsteps

I have never arrived
into a new life yet.

Have you?

Do you find the squeak
of boots on snow

excruciating?

Have you heard people
say, It wasn't me,

when they accomplished
a great feat?

I have, often.
But rarely.

•

Possibility
is one of the elements.
It keeps things going.

The ferry
with its ratty engine
and exactitude at chugging
into blocks and chains.

Returning as ever
to mother's house
under a salty rain.

 

(Poetry 2011)

 

 

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A Writer's Moment: 'Just use your own voice'

A Writer's Moment: 'Just use your own voice':   “I'm not aware of a cadence when writing, but I hear it after. I write in longhand, and that helps. You're clos...

'Just use your own voice'

 

“I'mnot aware of a cadence when writing, but I hear it after. I write in longhand,and that helps. You're closer to it, and you have to cross things out. You puta line through it, but it's still there. You might need it. When you erase aline on a computer, it's gone forever.” – Elmore Leonard

I’ve written about Leonard in the past, but on this date of his birth (inLouisiana in 1925) I couldn’t resist reminiscing again about one ofAmerica’s greatest writers of “Realism” in the past century. 

 

A novelist, short story writer, andscreenwriter, Leonard’s earliest works were Westerns (3:10 to Yuma and Hombre,for example), but he went on to specialize in crime fiction and suspensethrillers.  Many of his books have beenadapted into movies and TV shows; movies like Out of Sight and The GoldCoast, and mega-hit TV series like Justifiedand Get Shorty (also made into amovie).

 

To call Leonard’s writing “gritty,”might be an understatement, but regardless of how you classify it heshares a segment of America’s culture and dialogue that few other writers havebeen able to match.  To get a sense ofhow he developed his works, look at “Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing” (widelyavailable on the Internet).   Perhaps hismost telling rule: “If it sounds like writing . . . rewrite it.”

  

“Everyone has his own sound. I'm not going to presumehow to tell anybody how to write,” he said shortly before his death in2013.  “I think the best advice I give isto try not to write. Try not to overwrite, try not to make it sound too good.Just use your own voice. Use your own style of putting it down.”

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A Writer's Moment: Words can, and do, define us

A Writer's Moment: Words can, and do, define us:   The old saying about "sticks and stones" causing harm while "words" can not or do not is, of course...

Words can, and do, define us

 

The old saying about "sticksand stones" causing harm while "words" can not or do not is, ofcourse, hogwash. 

Over the course of our lives we have the opportunity to either say or writethings that shape friendships, solve problems, or salve wounds, both real andimagined.  Words also can cause divisions, create problems, or leavelasting hurts, whether real or imagined. 

Words can, and do, define us, especially those put in our writings forposterity. 

As this poet wrote:

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A Writer's Moment: 'Portraying the drama of the human spirit'

A Writer's Moment: 'Portraying the drama of the human spirit':   It may seem unfashionable to say so, but historians should seize the imagination as well as the intellect. History is, ...

'Portraying the drama of the human spirit'

 

It may seem unfashionable to say so,but historians should seize the imagination as well as the intellect. Historyis, in a sense, a story, a narrative of adventure and of vision, of characterand of incident. It is also a portrait of the great general drama of the humanspirit.” – Peter Ackroyd

 

Born in England on Oct. 5, 1949Ackroyd has written award-winning biographies of such luminaries like WilliamBlake, Charles Dickens and T.S. Eliot. But it was his nearly two-dozen historical novels that first earned himacclaim.  Winner of the Somerset MaughamAward and two Whitbread Awards, Ackroyd is noted for the depth of hisresearch and sheer volume of his work (nearly 50 nonfiction books, 19 novels, 4books of poetry, and several television programs).   Since 2013, most of his work has been nonfiction, including this year's The English Soul: Faith of a Nation.

 

But it was fiction writing –starting with his 1982 novel The Great Fire of London – that  putAckroyd on the writing map.   The book set the stage for along sequence of novels dealing with the complex interaction of time and spaceand what Ackroyd calls "the spirit of place.” 

  

“I don’t think I ever read a noveluntil I was 26 or 27,” he said.  “Iwanted to be a poet … (and) had no interest in fiction or biography, andprecious little interest in history.  Butthose three elements in my life have become the most important.” 

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A Writer's Moment: It's 'the right order of things'

A Writer's Moment: It's 'the right order of things':   “My first duty is to write a gripping yarn. Second is to convey credible characters who make you feel what they feel. O...

It's 'the right order of things'

 

“Myfirst duty is to write a gripping yarn. Second is to convey credible characterswho make you feel what they feel. Only third comes the idea.”– David Brin

 

Astro-Physicist Brin, bornin California on Oct. 6, 1950, has earned a Hugo, Locus, Campbell and NebulaAward – basically a “clean sweep” of all the top awards in the Science Fictiongenre and a testament to his "putting things in the right order."

His Campbell Award winning novel The Postman was adapted into a KevinCostner feature film, and his nonfiction book The Transparent Societywon both the Freedom of Speech Award (from the American Library Association)and the McGannon Communication Award.   Hismost recent books are Castaways of NewMojave and a short story collection, TheBest of David Brin, both published in 2021.

 

A Fellow of the Institute forEthics and Emerging Technologies, Brin helped establish the Arthur C. ClarkeCenter for Human Imagination at UC-San Diego.  A member of the advisory board of NASA’s Innovative and AdvancedConcepts group, he is a futurist consultant for corporations and governmentagencies and said he’s glad he was a scientist before becoming a writer.

 

“There's no doubt that scientifictraining helps many authors write better science fiction," hesaid.   "And yet, several of thevery best were English majors who could not parse a differential equation tosave their lives.” 

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