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Home of Michael Perry – Author, Humorist, Singer/Songwriter, Amateur Pig Farmer

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Posts Tagged ‘how to be a writer’

Struggling Writer

For the students of PCIS, here are the images we worked with today when we spoke about writing and revision (if you click on the pictures, you will see a few comments).

 

The Best Part

Revision: my favorite stage in the writing process. This is when the obsessive-compulsive tendencies that frustrate me to the edge of madness throughout the rest of the process (and daily life itself) suddenly become an asset. This is the inky equivalent of a musician tinkering with the mix.

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Reason #742 Writing is Unlike Logging

My two brothers and I are all self-employed and used to taking our work where we can find it. As such I am at this moment working on a book while sitting in a hotel lobby. While considering the pros and cons of the portability of my job, I was given to think of my brother Jed trying to log in a hotel lobby. Knowing him as I do, I can tell you he would get quite a kick out of the attempt. I can almost smell the two-cycle exhaust. And I think we could snake the skidder cables in through the automatic doors, although one assumes the SWAT teams would have arrived by then.

A Good Editor

Current book project moving along…one more big deadline to hit, and if I hit it, the book will be out in August 2012. Fingers not crossed, because that makes it tough to type. All writers should be blessed with an editor like mine. She has mastered the ability to tolerate my false starts and wish-wash and perplexitude and yet she knows just when to brandish the figurative ball peen hammer…wrapped in velvet, of course.

This is Mike Writing

Imagine a pile of bricks. Imagine a bricklayer determined to build a beautiful wall from those bricks. Now imagine the bricklayer attempting to construct that wall by strapping on a helmet, tying his hands behind his back, and bashing into the pile of bricks head-first, over and over and over.

Pretty much it.