Marion Dane Bauer's Blog, page 11
September 4, 2018
Clearing
Do not try to save the whole world or do anything grandiose. Instead, create a clearing in the dense forest of your life and wait there patiently, until the song that is your life falls into your own cupped hands and you recognize and greet it. Only then will you know how to give yourself […]
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August 28, 2018
My Favorite Book
How often I have been asked, especially when I used to speak in schools: “Which is your own favorite of all your books?” “The one I’m working on right now,” I always said. “That has all my attention and all my heart. The rest I remember fondly, but by the time each book comes out, […]
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August 21, 2018
What Writers Ought to Do
I’m often asked if there is something I think writers ought to do, and recently in an interview I heard myself say: “Several things. Love words, agonize over sentences. And pay attention to the world.” Susan Sontag
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August 14, 2018
Following My Own Advice
The letter from my editor was polite, even encouraging. She said something like, “Marion, this is going to be a very, very powerful read, but I find some things about it puzzling.” And then she went on to explain her puzzlement, including saying that she didn’t know who my main character was, a young boy […]
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August 7, 2018
By Happiness
By happiness I mean here a deep sense of flourishing that arises from an exceptionally healthy mind. This is not a mere pleasurable feeling, a fleeting emotion, or a mood, but an optimal state of being. Happiness is also a way of interpreting the world, since while it may be difficult to change the world, […]
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July 31, 2018
Autogenics
In my last blog, I talked about positive expectation, about keeping a friendly relationship with my brain so that it will keep working for me. What I didn’t talk about is the technique I’ve learned for doing just that. It works, and it’s so simple that I’m turning into a crusader, eager to share it. […]
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July 24, 2018
The Universe
It’s very likely that the universe is really a kind of a question, rather than the answer to anything. Kevin Kelly
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July 17, 2018
Positive Expectation
A writer’s career, more than any other career I know or can imagine, is dependent on our having a friendly relationship with our own brains. Sometimes in my life as a writer that friendly relationship is just there. It requires neither thought nor effort. The project I am working on itself creates that friendship. The […]
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July 10, 2018
Our Discomfort
Our discomfort and our grappling is not a sign of failure. It’s a sign that we’re living at the edge of our imaginations. America Ferrera
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July 3, 2018
Writers Helping Writers
It’s lonely and isolating work, this writing business. Usually we manufacture ideas in our heads with little input—or even interest—from others. We sit, day after day, poking at a keyboard, making words appear, weighing them, revising them, weighing them again. Wondering if we’re coming anywhere near the dream we began with. We do all this […]
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