Who doesn’t love the Beatles? I didn’t, at least not until later in high school. I dismissed the band, not out of a genuine dislike of their music but for the same reason I rejected Britney Spears and Abercrombie and Fitch: I was pretentious. Like most insufferable hipsters in the early 2000s, I detested anything … Continue reading
Self destruction can take many forms: men, martinis, one too many lines of coke, drug-fueled nights staying up until dawn. My favorite form of masochism is browsing LinkedIn. Though going on the professional platform almost always makes me feel bad, I do it time and time again. And what happens? I end up in a … Continue reading
Since I finished my last project a few weeks ago, I haven’t felt compelled to put pen to page. I was stuck in limbo: what did I want to write next? what did I even have to say? I felt myself oscillating between two contradictory impulses: the instinct to wait for the muse’s mysterious reappearance … Continue reading
I love studying superb sentences. I get almost unparalleled pleasure from uncovering how parts of a sentence work together to produce an effect. You could imagine my delight when I discovered Allegra Hyde’s beautifully-articulated essay “What Makes a Great Opening Line?”. Why, Hyde wonders, does one fall in love at first sentence? In our distracted … Continue reading
I’ve never conceived myself as a fiction writer. Though I’ve loved getting lost in a great story for as long as I can remember (my fondest memories are huddling with the American Girl series under floral covers), I never imagined I could write them myself. Writing stories was for other people, people more imaginative and inventive than myself. As … Continue reading
Have you ever been able to recall a memory in evocative detail? Though you haven’t been to Venice in five years, you can still recollect how a light October drizzle fell over St. Mark’s square. Or maybe you can remember the lush greenness of the woods whooshing by your window when you took a bus … Continue reading
Master of the macabre Stephen King once said, “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.” Many aspiring writers think writing requires a magic formula: a certain number of pages or words a day, a particular brand of pencil, a superstitious … Continue reading
Sometimes our relationship with the muse feels like a situationship. Our connection has many of the characteristics of a serious romance, but none of the commitment. Like a couple, we’ll listen attentively to each other’s problems, we’ll text each other “how’s your day?”, we’ll kiss, we’ll have sex. We might even go to Saturday brunch … Continue reading
When you think of a writer, many words come to mind but fashionable probably isn’t one of them. Dark and depressed? Certainly. Above average intelligence? Perhaps. But fashionable? Unlikely. The popular conception of a writer is a bearded man in a dirty bathrobe hunched over his desk. He hasn’t showered in weeks, his hair is … Continue reading
We don’t usually think of writers as fashionable people. Indeed, the word “writer” calls to mind a slob in slippers and ratty bathrobe. Just as his desk is a disaster area of dirty dishes and day old coffee mugs, papers scribbled with half-formed ideas strewn everywhere, his appearance is disheveled: he hasn’t combed his hair … Continue reading
The Blank-Faced Confidante 