A few years back I came across Elmore Leonard’s short list of rules for writing. The man had a way of making stories feel like real life overheard. One line from him has stayed with me: “My most important rule is one that sums up the ten. If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.”ContinueContinue reading “Writing More Like Elmore”
Tag Archives: creativity
Writing Like You Talk — And Meaning It
I came late to the em dash. Embarrassingly late, really… Like a good restaurant that’s been there all along, right down the street, and you just kept driving past. For most of my writing life, I treated punctuation like traffic signals. Period: stop. Comma: slow down. Semicolon: pause, but stay with me. Colon: something formalContinueContinue reading “Writing Like You Talk — And Meaning It”
FROM THE WEB: Lessons from Tolkien’s “Leaf by Niggle” – Word on Fire
While researching my literary anniversary piece on J. R. R. Tolkien’s “Leaf by Niggle,” I came across an essay that thoughtfully explores the spiritual shape of the story. The author describes it as “probably the closest thing in Tolkien’s corpus to an autobiographical allegory,” a claim that feels earned the longer you consider the tale.ContinueContinue reading “FROM THE WEB: Lessons from Tolkien’s “Leaf by Niggle” – Word on Fire”
Early Waters: First Pages of ‘The Gales of November’
When I was writing a commemorative post about the anniversary of the Edmund Fitzgerald, I stumbled across a new book on the subject. That put me in a bit of a quandary: since retiring, I’ve been trying to downsize my personal library from four six-foot bookcases to two. Ouch! If you’re a bookworm, you knowContinueContinue reading “Early Waters: First Pages of ‘The Gales of November’”
Walking the Enterprise: How a Video Rekindled Childhood Wonder
GEEK WARNING: PERSONAL PROTECTIVE EQUIPMENT REQUIRED. Nostalgia levels may spike without warning, so proceed carefully.Hello, my name is Darrell… and yes, I’m a Trekkie. Always have been. Always will be. The Project That Stopped Me in My Tracks Every now and then, some corner of the internet taps you on the shoulder and says, “SitContinueContinue reading “Walking the Enterprise: How a Video Rekindled Childhood Wonder”
Veni. Vidi. Scripsi. 