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It took twice as long as I thought it would, and it’s only half as good as I’d hoped, but the first draft of my book is finished. This morning our cat Zooey walked across my desk and vomited on the manuscript. My first bad review.
By Sy SafranskyJanuary 2012I don’t believe in anything mystical, Ms. Freedman. Not even God. You made us build that diorama of Mount Olympus, and you made us paint that mural with unicorns and butcherbirds and sand toads. You said it was to show that books transport us to different worlds, where there are different rules, and there’s magic in everything.
By Kathleen FoundsSeptember 2011I didn’t feel like writing today, but here I am, lacing up my writing shoes. Here I am, lumbering around the track. That’s all it takes, the coach says. Just keep putting one word in front of the other.
By Sy SafranskyJuly 2011I used to worship the face in the mirror. He was the only god around. Year after year I made my sacrifice. Year after year he looked at me and frowned.
By Sy SafranskyJune 2011Nature, too, is an editor. Isn’t evolution a force that shapes all living things? It’s no surprise, then, that the sentences we struggle to create must climb out of the muck, dragging their tails behind them; stand up; stand tall.
By Sy SafranskyMay 2011Wars where feirce at hand. In crimenal v.s. soldier a young boy that hade a dream lived in these pereyod. hes dream that filed his heart is to work with a famous crimenal. He could do well and impress the bandit. The Bandits name was captin JJC the fieirce. The young boy was an orfen. he hade a plan.
By Gregory MartinMarch 2011A writer is in a perpetual struggle with emptiness. He or she awakens each day to the Blank Page and somehow finds words to fill it. But the next day the page returns, just as blank as before. Even a finished book carries traces of emptiness, behind the words and in the corners of the pages. Normally this emptiness is white, but I am confronted with the rarer black variety.
By SparrowMarch 2011Every year, new words are added to the language — too many, if you ask me. Nouns are dragged into alleys, beaten into submission, then sent back into the world dressed as verbs like “transitioning” or “gifting” or, if you pardon my English, “languaging.”
By Sy SafranskyFebruary 2011I haven’t written in more than a week. Forgive me, O Muse, for being absent without leave. Maybe it’s the Prozac. Maybe it’s the rain. Maybe it’s because I’m too damn vain. Can’t I put down simple words and send them out the door?
By Sy SafranskyJanuary 2011December 2010Language is a skin: I rub my language against the other. It is as if I had words instead of fingers, or fingers at the tip of my words. My language trembles with desire.
Roland Barthes
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