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I’ve learned that it’s not the noise around me that can stop me from writing — it’s the chatter and busyness in my own mind. Writing in public places helps me get past that. [via MAD's Monday Muse: Artist & Writer's Crawl]
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It occurs to me that I can be pretty clever making up reasons why I shouldn’t be writing. Perhaps my imagination can be put to better use. [read on...]
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Discouraged, writer and choreographer Agnes de Mille turned to Martha Graham for advice. Over sodas at Schrafft’s — the place where Holly Golightly got her take-out breakfast to eat at Tiffany’s — this is what Martha told her: [read on...]
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We often hear talk about needing a “spark” to create. But maybe the spark is always present, and we refuse to recognize it. [read on..]
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So I’m working on this piece. And I can’t seem to stop tinkering with it, even though I think it’s pretty likely the tinkering isn’t improving anything. How do I know when to stop rewriting? [read on...]
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How do I learn how to write? After the writing group, the workshops, the books, and all the advice, it comes down to me and the page. One thing I both love and hate about writing is: I am always practicing, never mastering. [read on...]
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We amateurs think we have to wait for the big idea, the next scene, the next line, to arrive before we sit down to work. But the pros know the Muse sits in wait for us, gifts in hand, expecting us to show up and honor our intentions to write. [Read on...]
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Besides being MAD about Words, I’m mad about the movies. I often take The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film, by Michael Ondaatje down off my bookshelf and read it again to feed my two obsessions. Murch is an Academy Award winning film editor who worked on “The Godfather” and many other [...]
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“Everyone who writes strives for the same thing. To say it swiftly, clearly, to say the hard thing that way, using few words. Not to gum up the paragraph. To know when to quit when you’ve done. And not to have hangovers of other ideas sifting in unnoticed. Good writing is precisely like good dressing. [...]
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This week, another gift from the sea.
“If the oyster had hands, there would be no pearl. Because the oyster is forced to live with the irritation for an extended period of time, the pearl comes to be…. Mistakes and accidents can be irritating grains that become pearls; they present us with unforeseen opportunities, they are [...]
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I’m away on a little vacation, but I’m still thinking of you, and I remembered this remark by the great John Gardner, because I’m in sand-castle-building territory.
“The best way of all for dealing with writer’s block is never to get it. Some writers never do. Theoretically there’s no reason one should get it, if one [...]
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I saw the Julie & Julia movie yesterday. Julia Child’s fearlessness, her joyful energy and passion, drove her to success. Author Annie Dillard doesn’t hold back either. Isn’t interesting how often good writing advice makes good life advice, too?
“One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play [...]
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MAD about Words
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Mary Ann de Stefano
Cool, clear-eyed seeker of
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