When my English Literature professor, Marilyn McEntyre, told us Hemingway would write all day in small Parisian cafes and, afterward, take his lunch to the Musee du Luxembourg where he would look at Cezannes, it transformed how I looked at authors—and writing, for that matter—forever.
I believe in failing. Take a huge risk. Try something difficult. Come up short. It’s not a bad thing. You can learn from it, grow from it, embrace it.
Good things come from failure.
That is if you face it. If you look at it in the eye and say, “Yes. I failed. And that’s okay. What can I do differently next time?” This is called repentance. You turn around and look at what you did and what you didn’t do. You see what you can do better.
There are seven days in a week and six of them are for failing.
The seventh is for thankfulness.
Elmore Leonard said, Never use any word other than “said” for dialogue. Why? Try reading the above out loud. The “he exclaimed” and “he admonished” and “she cried” become like a child saying your name over and over. Distracting.
The word “said,” though, is easily ignored. You want the attention focused on the dialogue, not your clever use of verbs. In many cases, it’s good to change up word choice. You don’t want to use “quintessential” or “luminescence” too many times. “Said” is a major exception. Let us tune it out. Please.
I closed my eyes, and what I saw made me cringe.
A little kid, maybe ten or eleven, sat against a wall watching some other kids his age doing tricks on their skateboards. He wore short red shorts and roller blades on his feet. When he got up to skate around the black top, the other kids pointed and nudged each other, laughing at him. Their shorts were baggy. He nearly tripped and fell several times. Embarrassed, he sat back down to watch.
I opened my eyes, shuddering.
The little kid was me.
Can non-fiction writers borrow techniques from poets to set their writing apart?
Last night, I finished Rob Bell’s explosive and polarizing book about heaven and hell, Love Wins. While I don’t want to review or comment on a book that has been reviewed and commented on en extrema, I do want to make some observations as a writer.
