In this short video (1.20 min) the Oprah Winfrey Network features writer Cynthia Bond, author of the novel Ruby. Bond talks about putting together the Blackbird Writing Collective – a writing group – because she needed to finish her novel and the support of like-minded minds and spirits. The members of the Collective discuss 3 rules that can help aspiring writers. Click on this link to watch.
“Follow the example of poets A. R. Ammons and Jorie Graham: take up painting or sketching as a way of keeping your vision new.” –Rebecca McClanahan McClanahan doesn’t explain how taking art lessons can improve one’s writing, but I have first-hand knowledge of how painting or sketching helps us write better. When you’re sketching or painting something or someone, you don’t think, you look at the details, and see beyond the details. You train your eyes and mind to be observant, to notice how the light “paints” on the subject. The result is an interpretation that is truly and uniquely yours. McClanahan suggests another exercise:”Or follow the example of writer Frye Gaillard, who claims to have a bad ‘visual memory.’ When he visits a place or interviews a subject, he takes detailed notes on what he sees, later expanding the notes into sensory descriptions.” My attempts at painting “If description is the flowering, it is also the root and stem of effective writing,” wrote Rebecca McClanahan in her book, Word Painting, A Guide to Writing More Descriptively. I’m …
