Posts Tagged ‘Theodora Goss’

Guest Post: The Work of Writing

by Theodora Goss

I keep reading blog posts that basically all make the same point: anyone can find time to write. You’ve probably read them too. The message is, if you want to be a writer, you can find the time. Get up early and write before work. Write on your lunch break. Write on your commute home. Write after everyone else is asleep. If you can write even a hundred words a day, eventually you’ll have a novel.

It’s not a bad message, but it’s aimed toward aspiring writers. And aspiring writers, I would argue, are very different from working writers, who are different, again, from professional writers.

Guest Post: Guilt and Shame for Writers

by Theodora Goss I’ve been thinking about this issue a lot. Several days ago, I posted the following: 1. Guilt and shame are the enemies of the artist. 2. Guilt is when you feel as though your time should be spent doing something else, for someone else. 3. Shame is when you think what you’re producing […]

Guest Post: Writers and Families

My family has a strange attitude toward my writing, which I think is almost always the case unless the writer comes from a family of professional creators. (By professional, I mean people who actually make a portion of their incomes from a creative endeavor — writing, art, dance, etc.) When I met my cousins in Debrecen, they told me they’d heard I’d become a famous writer, of fantasy like J.R.R. Tolkien. Of course, I’m not at all a famous writer, and what I write is nothing like Tolkien.

Guest Post: Why Go to the Museum?

Every fall, I teach my students Walter Pater’s Conclusion to Studies in the Renaissance. What I’m talking about here is not so different from what Pater is talking about: he says that we need to experience each moment fully, to live with a certain passionate intensity that involves continual curiosity, observation.