When I was young and in school, two poems found me and wedged themselves into my memory like a shim wedging a gap beneath a door. The first was in high school. It was written, said our teacher, by a person in a jail cell, looking out his very tiny window. I remember neither the […]
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Why Does Writing Look Effortless?
Of all the arts, why is writing the only one that looks effortless? Why is the struggle of learning to write so invisible to the outside world? Can they not see the blood, sweat, late nights, and myriad revisions? No one wakes up in the morning and decides to be a concert pianist by lunchtime. […]
Perfect Writing Conditions and Other Fantasies
It happened again. I looked out my office window this morning, and there was no sign of the turquoise waters of the Caribbean, palm trees swaying in a salt-tinged breeze, or seabirds swooping over frothy waves. Instead, I was greeted by my normal view of my Colorado neighbors’ houses, fresh snow dusting last week’s old […]
Writing Body Language – Are Your Characters Fluent in Body Language?
In the improv comedy show Whose Line Is It Anyway?, the comedians often perform a particular sketch, called “Moving People,” where they pull two audience members on stage. Two of the comedians act out a scene while the two audience members frantically try to pose them to match the dialogue. The comedians are as helpful […]
From Freelance Knights to Freelance Writers
The word “freelance” was invented in the early 1800s to describe unaffiliated knights or soldiers from centuries earlier. Medieval mercenaries weren’t attached to any particular lord, king, or queen. With their lances, swords, and battle-axes in hand, they would sign on to fight for whomever had the coin to pay them, for however short a […]
So Many Words, So Little Time
We’re a wordy bunch, we English speakers. According to the Oxford Dictionaries’ Lexico website (“How Many Words Are There in the English Language?”), “The Second Edition of the 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary, published in 1989, contains full entries for 171,476 words in current use, and 47,156 obsolete words. To this may be added around 9,500 derivative […]
