Thoughts about writing, and the universe.
A short post this week. I'm skiing for a few days with students in the mountains, where the snow is still thick although the air has warmed. We bussed here this morning along the Nordfjord's shores, through rocky valleys and mountain passes, and crossed the snow line just below camp. The Nordic students step into... Continue Reading →
Near the end of my journey north, the bus drove onto a ferry crossing the Sogn Fjord. I disembarked and went to the boat's edge. Beneath me, the motor sounded deep and long, like a brilliant foghorn sweeping out over the water. Mountains jutted up on either side of the fjord, and swirls of gray... Continue Reading →
The lifeblood of so many stories is in their characters. An unsympathetic, unrelatable protagonist can easily drive readers away, and writing believable, sympathetic characters can pose real challenges. Not least among these is the question of how our characters change from beginning to end. How do we write believable, authentic change in our characters? How,... Continue Reading →
I've long been puzzled by the idea of conflict so ubiquitous in the stories we read and write. Why is it necessary? What, precisely, is it giving us? To what extent is the focus on conflict reflecting our worldview and basic human psychology? Is it possible to write a story without conflict? If you keep... Continue Reading →
For those of us in Western cultures and the Middle East, there are few foods more staple than bread. We might not even notice the bread as we swim through grocery store aisles (shoutout to Hannah Whiteoak's "Earth Report"), throw a sandwich in our lunchboxes, proclaim some sensational new dip at a party... Onion focaccia.... Continue Reading →
The land here is dry. The leafy tendrils I saw from the airplane, riverbeds, I imagined, are really more of folds in the rock, like the skin of a naked cat around the haunches. Earth muscles, they make me think of. It's December, and a bit of early winter snow remains , but mostly it... Continue Reading →
Words like trees 