Maria Popova, impresario of BrainPickings.com, truly loves writers and writing. Check out her recent essay Bird by Bird: Anne Lamott’s Timeless Advice on Writing and Why Perfectionism Kills Creativity (“among my10 favorite books on writing,” she writes) which quotes extensively from Lamott’s book about writing, Bird by Bird. Popova concludes with this worthwhile list of related reading: Bird by… Continue reading Advice on writing by Anne Lamott, via Maria Popova
Category: On Writing
The toil and tears, craft and practice of writing today
Will writers keep working for free?
Thoughts about online piracy and Shakespeare from Scott Turow of the Authors Guild. What happens when a writer loses his monetary incentive to write? The February 2011 essay Would the Bard Have Survived the Web? in the New York Times by Scott Turow (president of the Authors Guild), Paul Aiken (executive dir. of the Authors Guild) and James Shapiro (Columbia U. Shakespeare scholar) uses as a case study the Enlightenment’s explosion of famous playwrights in the late 16th century to conclude that literary talent will often remain undeveloped unless markets reward it.
The end of the “raucous conversation”?
Turns out that books have always been interactive, but now writing in the margins may be a dying art. I could fill this whole blog with the growing list of public lamentations over things that are falling by the wayside due to technology. Another recent disappearance, as noted by this New York Times article Book Lovers Fear Dim Future for Notes in the Margins, is marginalia.
When writing ISN’T a lonely profession
Enough with virtual groups. This time a group of authors bands together in real life. As recently written up in the New York Times, a group of Westchester, NY, writers prove that it’s possible and even necessary to come together, network, and socialize—even when everyone seems to busy to do so. Plus they have a damn fine clubhouse in which to do it.