“And then, while writing, a new and thrilling relationship would spring up under the drive emotion, coalescing and telescoping alien facts into a known and felt truth. That was the deep fun of the job; to feel within my body that I was pushing out to new areas of feeling, strange landmarks of emotion.”
–Richard Wright
Source: Another lovely quotation received through the The Southeast Review Writing Regimen.
What work-in-progress? Between the Yom Kippur holiday and my hit-the-ground-running return to my 9-5 office job this week (following a month-long medical leave), I’ve had neither the time nor the energy to do much writing.
However, I have been enjoying at least reading through the daily emails that I’m receiving from The Southeast Review. I’ve subscribed to the latest SER Writing Regimen, which means that I am currently collecting a series of inspirational prompts/exercises, quotes, podcasts, and riff words that I can use. Someday.
As for whether the Apple computers changed not only who wrote, but what they wrote, I can’t speak for others. I can only say that these computers coaxed out of me an expansiveness the typewriter never did. For every writer, the leap from short story to novel is, well, a leap. It involves faith, and resources, and a conception, finally, of how much room is yours in the world. I was not a person who would have looked at a ream of paper and thought, “Sure, that is mine to fill up.” But I turned out to be a person who could keep moving a cursor until I’d filled one ream, then another. It is a truly minuscule reason, in the scheme of things, for which to celebrate and mourn Steve Jobs. Still, I add my small reason to the infinity of others.
–Gish Jen
Source: Jen’s lovely op-ed in last Sunday’s New York Times, “My Muse Was an Apple Computer”
Follow this blog long enough, and you learn that I’m a fan of writing exercises. And during September’s focus on the teaching of writing, the folks at Fiction Writers Review added a slew of “Get Writing” posts to their archive. Go take a look and get writing!
Have a great weekend, and see you back here on Monday.
Erika Dreifus lives and writes in New York City. Her story collection, Quiet Americans, was published in January 2011 by Last Light Studio Books. Erika is a contributing editor for The Writer magazine and Fiction Writers Review and an advisory board member for J Journal: New Writing on Justice, and she wrote the section on “Choosing a Low-Residency MFA Program in Creative Writing” for the second edition of Tom Kealey’s Creative Writing MFA Handbook (Continuum, 2008). Erika’s writing practice encompasses fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. Erika is also the editor/publisher of The Practicing Writer, a free (and popular) e-newsletter featuring advice, opportunities, and resources on the craft and business of writing for fictionists, poets, and writers of creative nonfiction.
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