Mechanics | soul of a word

builds on a book I wrote about the creative process called UNCOMMON GENIUS. Based on conversations with forty winners of the MacArthur Award, or so-called genius prize, I put together a picture of how great work happens.
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soulofaword continues this quest to bring transparency to the creative process, especially as it relates to the written word. We use the back door here and enter through the kitchen to learn how good work really happens. Join us, every Friday, right here!

Photo credit: Patrick Hajzler.

Do You Need to Know the Ending?

This is a “yes, but” situation.

Yes: If you don’t know where you’re going, how can you chart a course to get there?

A whole lot can happen in the middle, some of which might take you by surprise and affect the ending, but when you pull out your star charts, and man the ship’s wheel all [...]

19 Reasons Why You’ll Never Finish

Spoken from my been-there, done-that, know-it-well life, here is what can complicate a nice, clean run to the finish:

1. Your brain has turned to gelatin. Your muscles are mush. Fatigue sets in. No energy, no writing.

2. Anything is easier than writing. The ironing. The kids. The vacuum. The correspondence.

3. Email and social media: the [...]

7 Stories I Won't Tell

I had a professor in law school, a terrifying guy who nonetheless managed to leave me with one key teaching: the business of the law is to draw lines. That certainly turned out to be the case and I figure it’s the same for writers. Where do you draw your line?

For me, here are 7 [...]

How Long Does It Take?

Many, many decades – The esteemed Elizabeth Bishop, on one line of poetry, the comma moved back and forth.

25 years – Steven Spielberg, on his latest film “Red Tails.”

30 years – Frank McCourt on Angela’s Ashes.

2 months – Richard Paul Evans, author of eleven New York Times best-sellers, including Finding Noel and The Christmas [...]

9 Really Useful Tips

Want to improve your writing? Try these suggestions culled from my decades at the craft:

1. With few exceptions, stay in the moment. Use your chronology and don’t get ahead of it.

2. Don’t save anything for later. Bring whatever you have right here, right now.

3. Each time a character appears on-stage, some aspect must deepen. Characters [...]

The Value of Routine

Almost everyone has his or her own version of what it takes to get to work.

Do you start fitfully like Michael Lewis?

Do you stay in bed for a while and have your papers brought to you on a silver tray like Lady Antonia Fraser?

Though you may not see another soul all day, do you need [...]

The Fear of Failure

We all know the feeling, and we know too that our fears can compromise if not shut down an otherwise perfectly good writing day. Fear may not just precipitate the failure; it may be the primary reason for it.

Is there an antidote to its crippling effects?

Some writers talk about the need to muster one’s courage, [...]

The Wind of Destiny

“We are living in a storm where a hundred contradictory elements collide; debris from the past, scraps of the present, seeds of the future, swirling, combining, separating under the imperious wind of destiny.”

These words of a poet, published in a French literary journal more than a century ago, still seem exactly right, especially tomorrow night, New [...]

The Good, the Bad, and the Unclear

What went well these past twelve months, and what could have gone better? I’m supposed to ask myself this every quarter—it’s in the plan!—but that part of the plan, two years running now, has fizzled. Still, it’s not too late:

1. TIME

On a good day, I can look up and be amazed that five hours have [...]

Open to Interpretation

We who write the words can entertain, confound, confirm—anything can be concluded from what we say, intended or not. Sometimes I forget this. Recently, however, I got a reminder, courtesy of a party game devised for the amusement of our guests.

At the heart of it were ornaments labeled specifically for each person, but by description, [...]

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