“There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”
Leonard Cohen
Let in the light.
Let the light in.
Tag Archives: amwriting
Words Mean Everything. What I’m Teaching this Semester.
“Words started to mean not just something, but everything.”
I’m looking forward to teaching The Book Thief, by Markus Zukas this semester. Reading and writing our way through trauma can save us, sustain us. Not just in the pages of an imaginary universe. In real life, too. I know books saved me many times.
We’re also be reading Fahrenheit 451 this semester. Our discussions will focus around knowledge & education, censorship, power and authority, fear, risk, survival, reading, story and identity. It’s going to be a fun environment with great discussions. There are so many parallels to contemporary events.
Why, for instance, do some people fear words, and books, so much so that they ban them? Why are 62 million girls out of school, globally? Why did the Taliban shoot Malala Yousafzai in the head to keep her from getting an education? What were they afraid of? And, perhaps just as importantly, why was a young Malala so willing to risk so much to go to school each day? Why wasn’t she afraid (or was she?). Either way, she risked her life to learn. To see.
We’re reading and writing about interesting other stuff too. But this is going to shape our semester.
Welcome to Spring 2016! ~Lisa
Diet For a Writer’s Life
Write every day. Read intensely. See what happens. -Ray Bradbury
It’s a lifestyle choice.
Writing Like a Turtle
This is what I tell my writing students...
Every writer knows, that to make progress you have to take risks. To tell the truth and really leave it all on the page, you will feel vulnerable, like the turtle sticking it’s neck out.
Take risks.
But that’s the only way you’re going to get anywhere. Inch by inch. Little by little. Keep moving forward and you’ll get there. Your readers want truth and risk and all those messy bits of life on the page.
Happy Sunday to my collegereadycoach.com tribe.
xo, Lisa
What Writers Say: Life in the Wink of an Eye
Jack Kerouac on writing and life.
Make a Wish and Dream Big
Dream big.
Want to be a writer? Read, write, repeat.
Want to be a better writer? Read more!! Advice from Stephen King, who knows a little bit about the craft. This is the same advice I give to my student writers every semester. Reading and writing are connected. So, read, write, and repeat.
Advice from Mark Twain On Writing:
“Experience is an author’s most valuable asset…”
Advice to Writers: Read Good Books
“If you read good books, when you write, good books will come out of you.” ~NATALIE GOLDBERG
My Walden Pond…my writer’s view
This is where I did a mini writing retreat last week. I call this lake “My Walden,” because I feel inspired here. My soul drinks in the quiet, the peace, the beauty, like medicine for all the ills of life. Troubles float away and I can find the place within to be still, to listen, to observe and to write.
I hope you find your Walden, too. If not today, then soon. A room of one’s own, no matter where.
Happy Monday my loves~Lisa 💗
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