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A Story for a Very Cold Day
It’s 10°F this morning, and there’s ice on the inside of the windows. First thing I did? Go out and check on the chickens. Who were out in their yard apparently as happy as ever. I took them a big pot of hot water since their regular water dispenser was frozen solid. And I threw them…
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Do Negative Emotions Sharpen Perception?
Lots of people carry in their heads the image of the tortured artist: the writer/painter/musician whose brilliant artistic achievements spring from a soil rich with personal failures, miseries, addictions, and/or mental illnesses. Writing guru Julia Cameron persuasively argues that creativity does not require depression. Or agony. That well-adjusted artists are, actually, quite successful and productive–maybe even more so than the…
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Mondays
Is it just me, or do most off days seem to be Mondays? It’s strange, because my Sundays seem so inspirational. I spend time with my family and read for pleasure. Usually that reading leads to one or two “aha!” moments, in which I jot down the solution to a problem that’s been plaguing me for the past…
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A Matrix Poem
Lately, I’ve been playing around with creating a poem that reads two ways. All poems, of course, can be understood in multiple ways, but I wanted one with words that could actually be read in two different orders–and make just as much sense in each. Early on, I came up with the idea of arranging the…
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A Gossiper of the Imaginary
“When you’re a novelist, you’re a gossiper of the imaginary.” -Jane Smiley, winner of the Pulitzer Prize It’s been awhile since I’ve written any fiction. Sometimes I think I’m too analytical to do a good job of it. I am, after all, a philosopher by training, and philosophy requires thinking very systematically, and favoring rigor…
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Why We Read
A few weeks ago, I read a blog post by someone who was upset by research that suggested people don’t read in order to find information that could make their beliefs more accurate but primarily in order to confirm the beliefs they already have (a noted exception being the times we read work by authors we love to hate,…
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A Silly Writing Habit That Works
I’m going to go out on a limb here and tell you an embarrassing habit of mine. When I’m trying to get some perspective on a piece I’m revising–trying to step back and see where improvements can still be made, where it’s not quite up to par–I pull a book off one of my shelves. I…
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Unschooling and Sound Craftsmen
Every morning, I click around the WordPress universe looking for a few blog posts worth reading. This weekend brought me two posts that were not only intellectually stimulating but actually put tears in my eyes. I believe that reading them made me a better person, and I want to share them with you. Here are the links, along with…
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The Slave Driver and the Muse
In my last post, I discussed how the unconscious nature of much of what a writer does can induce fear and insecurity: doubt that one will ever be able to do it again. Now obviously writers are able to do it again and again. That’s why authors’ names are quite often printed larger than the titles of their books. We…
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The Reason for the Writer’s Terror
Everyone who is a writer or knows a writer is aware of how terrifying it can be to sit down in front of a blank page. Why? A carpenter doesn’t look at a bare cinderblock foundation, drop his tool belt, and run away screaming. A chef doesn’t look at an empty frying pan and despair. Why does the…
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Sharon Hewitt Rawlette, PhD 