Author Anna DeStefano wrote a beautiful essay today about Monet's Water Lilies and the artist's creative process at the end of his life.  Thomas Carlyle wrote, "Genius is the infinite capacity for taking pains," and I need to remember this right now.  I am deep in the revision thickets for LADY LAZARUS, and I usually get lost inside the tangle of ( Read more... )

I had the pleasure of editing a new writer's first story the other day.  It's such a rush to see that a new writer has game, y'know?  Anyhow, I learned a lot from giving her a critique, and caught something I do all the time myself.

It's described succinctly and well in Self-Editing for Fiction Writers -- "Resist the Urge to Explain" or RUE for ( Read more... )