I’ve heard sculptors say that, when a piece isn’t working, the best way forward isn’t to chip away at the details but rather smash it to the ground. Only devastation will make possible a new vision. Writers do the equivalent. In The Release I relate how, when Benjamin Percy spent two years writing a novel …
As I begin the bizarrely self-referential work of releasing The Release, I’m test-driving the teachings I put forward there. Can I really find increasing freedom as I send this book into the world? Can marketing and publicity really be life-giving? Can I sustain writing’s energizing, personally enriching exchange with mystery—the gift economy of the creative process—as …
As I write, Gwyn’s at the piano practicing a Beethoven Sonata, repeating trills, stumbling on scales, figuring out fingering. Distracting as her mistakes are, I find myself amazed that, after ten years of parental supervision, Gwyn is finally capable of cultivating for herself the joy of puzzling out a piece. Gwyn’s not naturally talented, but …
As a serious practitioner and teacher of one art form—writing—I don’t often share that I also play piano. Actually, I keep it secret. Why say anything when there’s no way in hell I’ll ever perform for you? I started taking lessons at age seven, two years before I began writing, and studied it relatively seriously, …
The writer’s life is anything but glamorous—mostly staring out the window, then crossing out what I’ve just written. Nonetheless, readings and author interviews are inevitably peppered with process questions: Do you write by hand or on the computer? How much do you write every day? How long did this book take you? The nitty-gritty aspects …
For years I’ve practiced strange medicine, resting my ear on the body of whatever story I happen to be writing. Is it alive? If so, what does it want to become? Even though we play a part in generating them, stories have heartbeats all their own. Once the draft is out, I listen beyond my …
“You’re really enjoying writing these days,” a friend recently said. She was mirroring back to me my enthusiasm for my current project, a middle grade novel sprinkled with fantasy that occupies my mornings and then travels with me into the rest of my day like an invisible jungle gym for the heart. I desperately want …
At the close of the year I like to pay tribute to those books that have moved me, molded me, transported me, and made me laugh. After all, books usher me into sleep each night and ground me each morning; they are my abiding, faithful companions. Isn’t it amazing that we can sink into another …
Why does this memory return today? This question is endlessly fruitful for those of us who seek the meaning buried in experience. I ask it whenever a memory won’t let me go. My father died in July, and this simple meal on a park bench conjures completely all he meant to me: Our mutual effort to begin again.
What’s different now is that, after banging my head against the wall for a bit, I occasionally see the blessings of being thwarted. Whatever tiny openings I find release in me a fierce and focused effort and creative solutions that otherwise might not have been possible.