story

The Brain In The Jar

03.13.2014 writing

On the lower bookshelf of my office is an old jar. It is filled with brownish liquid. And floating in it is a great grey brain. It’s a fake. I made it myself for some Halloween party. But it’s a reminder to me, the writer, that this is all I have to work with. I […]

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Writing Assignment: Write About Your Toolbox

08.23.2013 Tools

A toolbox is a story. When you open the box you are presented with a history of things repaired, of projects completed, and of dreams of things to come. But the stories aren’t written on the underside of the lid. They’re stored in the memories of the people who stocked this toolbox. When I look […]

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Writing Assignment: Write The Story Of A Day

02.22.2013 writing

A single day of life can seem completely uneventful or can have enough activity and incidents to fill a thick volume. Ask James Joyce about that. There’s more to a day of life than a series of events. There’s a story. Even for writers, many days go by uneventfully, unexamined. But each day of life […]

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Writing Assignment: Reduce A Story To Just A Beginning, Middle, & End

04.27.2012 writing

Telling a story is both a natural human action and one of the most difficult of art forms to master. Oral storytelling is one of the earliest and most central of human experiences. Writing builds upon this experience. We sometimes think of telling and writing stories as merely a form of entertainment, but there’s much […]

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Don’t Just Tell Stories, Ask For Them

11.18.2010 blogging

Writers love to be the life the party. We love to have people listen to us, to see the hits on our web sites climb, to have attention focused on us. We tell stories. But where do these stories come from? To be a writer do you have to live an exciting life and recount […]

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