An author is responsible for his characters in much the same way that a parent is for his children, or a teacher for his students Sometimes this manifold responsibility weighs heavily on me; I want to retreat entirely, lest I do damage. But we have to accept the stark fact that we not only can, but inevitably will do damage. ~ Madeleine L'Engle

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One summer Hugh and I went, more or less by accident, to a burlesque show. ... It was great fun. A series of pretty young girls came out on stage and danced while removing their clothing. I was filled with envy not so much for their lovely bodies as for the way they could twirl the tassels on their breasts: clockwise, counterclockwise (whiddershins ( Read more... )

During a panel discussion on drugs, homosexuality, pornography - “problems” in children’s books - I suggested to the young teenagers on the panel that if they wanted facts about these subjects, they turn to non-fiction, to scientific articles. One of them asked, “but can’t we find truth in fiction, too ( Read more... )

I read Chekhov’s letters and copied in my journal: “When you depict sad or unhappy people, and want to touch people’s hearts, try to be colder - it gives their grief a background against which it stands out in sharper relief.” And he went on to say that the writer does - and must - suffer with his characters, but he “must do this so that the reader ( Read more... )

We cannot afford, either as writers or as human beings, to be detached from the human predicament, because this is what we write about, and it is the predicament we ourselves are in. We are always on stage, actors in the human drama. But we are also an simultaneously members of the audience: it takes both performer and audience to “create” a drama ( Read more... )

To be responsible means precisely what the word implies: to be capable of giving a response. It isn’t only the Flower Children or Hell’s Angels who are opting out of society. A writer who writes a story which has no response to what is going on in the world is not only copping out himself but helping others to be irresponsible, too. ... All of us ( Read more... )

First of all, I do spell the English way; I was in an English boarding school when I was twelve, thirteen and fourteen, and these are the years when spelling gets set. After I had been made to write h-o-n-o-u-r, for instance, a hundred times on the a blackboard several hundred times, it was almost impossible for me to spell it h-o-n-o-r. The ( Read more... )

We have now crossed over to that time in the semester where all writing and work is beginning to shift to the bed.

Why, pray tell?Because after awhile, your butt gets sore from sitting at the desk, and there's more room to spread out ( Read more... )

"When our children were little and we lived in Crosswicks year round, they liked to count things. They started to count the books, but stopped after they got to three thousand. They also counted beds and figured that as long as all the double beds held two people, we could sleep twenty-one; that, of course, included the attic." Madeleine L'Engle, A ( Read more... )

And I'm amused that I'm torn whether to use my "postmodern" icon or my "unhealthy addiction" icon ( Read more... )