William Zinsser once said, “The most important sentence in any article is the first one.” Though they’re the most vital part of a piece, hooks are often the most difficult to construct. Sometimes the task of constructing a proper lead is so tough, I just dive right into the material. That or begin with a stock template out of … Continue reading
Nothing is more toxic to the soul than comparison. Glancing at the biographies of established writers, I feel myself infected with that familiar poison: by the time she was my age, Jodi Picoult was already married with children, had published several books, worked as a creative writing instructor at a private academy and English teacher … Continue reading
It’s good to finally take yourself seriously as a writer but—as you find markets for your work—you must not forget the simple joy of making art. In my experience, the best writing is done in a spirit of fun without the expectation of a client or reader. The pieces I hold dearest were written on … Continue reading
William Zinsser, author of perennial classic On Writing Well, once argued the “mere serviceable is a drag.” Despite what stuffy academics and the literati might say, I completely agree: the primary goal of writing is entertainment. “What?” you might scoff in disbelief, “what about the nobler goals of information and persuasion, guidance and enlightenment?” Yes, … Continue reading
According to Barbara Baig, author of How to Be a Writer, writing depends on one thing: observation. As Marcel Proust once said, “The voyage of discovery is not in seeing new landscapes but in having new eyes.” Most of us go about our lives in a sort of stupor, only half aware of the physical … Continue reading
Reading Roy Peter Clark’s brilliantly practical Writing Tools and stumbled upon a writing strategy I adore: Writing Tool #23: “Place gold coins along the path: Reward the reader with high points, especially in the middle.” The question that torments every writer: how do we compel our readers to keep reading? Famed editor of the Wall Street … Continue reading
How many of us associate big, monumental birthdays with nervous breakdowns? In her exquisitely raw advice column Dear Sugar, Cheryl Strayed attempts to console 26 year old Elissa Bassist, a disheartened aspiring writer who wonders how she can “reach the page” when she can barely “lift her face off the bed.” Like many of us, … Continue reading
It’s always hard to get back to the page, especially when our writing routine has been periodically interrupted over a long stretch of time. If writing is a way of reconnecting with oneself, not having anything to say feels like a terrible kind of muteness. Like a traveler eager to book a hotel room, we’re … Continue reading
Filling the form. Julia Cameron, creativity expert and spiritual guru behind the smash hit The Artist’s Way, defines filling the form simply as doing our daily work: “What do I mean by filling the form? I mean taking the next small step instead of skipping ahead to a large one for which you may not be … Continue reading
French-Russian novelist Francine Du Plessix Gray always begins her writing classes by asking students to compare the following sentences, the first from Nabokov’s memoir of his youth in pre-Revolutionary Russia, Speak Memory, the second from Agee’s Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. “She turned on the steps to look back at me before descending into a jasmine-scented, … Continue reading
The Blank-Faced Confidante 