Last week I told you I’d set myself a new writing challenge: I signed up for NaNoWriMo — that’s NAtional NOvel WRIting MOnth, November, when thousands of people commit to writing a 50,000 first draft of a novel in 30 days. Well, it is October 31, so I have not written a word, but I’ve […]
Setting Yourself a Challenge (The Writer’s Inner Life)
Consider these two really odd “Sayings of the Desert Fathers.” Both are from the chapter on “Self-Control” in Benedicta Ward’s translation. They said of one hermit that he sometimes longed to eat a cucumber. So he took one and hung it in front of him where he could see it. He was not overcome by […]
Between Obscurity and Fame (The Writer’s Inner Life)
When I posted about the writer’s battle with “the demon of futility” I mentioned the frustration that can come from identifying yourself as a writer. People ask what you’ve written. They’ve never heard of it. They’ve never heard of you. In a way this is perfectly natural: A book can be a success by any reasonable […]
Facing Futility (The Writer’s Inner Life)
One of the struggles a writer faces (or anyone else with creative projects as part of their vocation) is the sense of futility. It is one of those temptations that comes in a kind of inner voice. Why not be old fashioned and just call it one of our demons? The Demon of Futility It can […]
The Problem of Idleness (The Writer’s Inner Life)
As Mark Twain, allegedly said (but probably didn’t), History doesn’t repeat itself — but it does rhyme. (The funny bits all get attributed to the same famous guys. As Abraham Lincoln said, The internet is being ruined by fake quotations. That one has to be true. I have it on a bumper sticker.) Fake quotation […]
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