Do you know this fable? It’s attributed to Aesop. Here’s the Harvard Classics version: A Man and his son were once going with their Donkey to market. As they were walking along by its side a countryman passed them and said: “You fools, what is a Donkey for but to ride upon?” So the Man […]
Joan Acocella took up this question in The New Yorker several years ago. She doesn’t answer it. Nobody can. There are as many answers as blocked writers. Acocella provides a history of explanations for why writers sometimes, often, abandon writing for years. Or forever. Some of those explanations are: 1. the early Romantic notion, promulgated by […]
You’ve probably never heard of Linds Redding. He was an art director who spent his life creating advertisements for other people’s products. Then he died. He was 52. Shortly before his death from esophageal cancer, he wrote a blog piece called “A Short Lesson in Perspective.” If you aspire to work in a creative industry […]
Why is it, whenever I hear Tony Banks’s keyboard riff at 9:09 – 9:16 on “Supper’s Ready” on Genesis’s Foxtrot (released UK Charisma 1972), I get an image of Dam Square and the Royal Palace of Amsterdam (Paleis op de Dam) back when it was the city hall? De Dam in Amsterdam (c. 1670-75) Gerrit […]
Over the past month, several people have mentioned to me their annoyance with Americans who rock a British accent. I’m talking about people who don’t know each other, bringing this up in entirely different contexts. I had no idea that faking an accent was the latest form of pretension, so I obviously need to get […]
To write fiction, you must make yourself holy. This is how. Immerse your heart in the dirty world. Crawl in its decay. Shout out its meager glories. Then leave. Then write. Then put down your pen and make dinner. It’s an odd pastime, fiction writing. First you must know the world intimately. Then you must […]
