Writing lesson from “The Tender Bar”

I’m reading The Tender Bar, by J.R. Moerhringer (which is, by the way, an excellent, non-depressing memoir) and I came across this passage this morning:
…I was the ideal candidate for writer’s block. All the classic defects converged in me — inexperience, impatience, perfectionism, confusion, fear. Above all I suffered from a naive view that writing [...]

Countdown to Boston

I’m up to about 225 pages in my book. I know i shouldn’t be so focused on this number, but it helps keep me going. It makes me feel like I’ve accomplished something when I see that total grow. I’ve learned that when writing a first draft, I need concrete proof that I am progressing. [...]

Ok, not *really* out of words.

Ok, so I didn’t really run out of words. Maybe I just ran out of focus and calm. I definitely have not been in my happy place, if you know what I mean.
Thanks for the encouraging comments and emails — for some reason it is always reassuring (in a dark sort of way) to know [...]

Absolutely apropos of nothing

But. The contractors remodeling the house behind ours have been blaring Billy Joel all afternoon. Aside from the fact that this raises many questions about said contractors, I am going to be hearing “Tell Her About It” and “Honesty” in my head for days.

Can I be out of words?

Is it possible to begin writing a book and about three-quarters of the way through, run out of things to say? I keep getting up early, sitting down at my desk with a steaming cup of coffee, surrounded by books, scrapbooks and photos of Korea, and… nothing. I open the Word files of my unfinished [...]

Korean star power big in Japan

A post on Korean cooking drew my attention to this article in the Washington Post about how Korea’s male celebs are all the rage these days among Japanese women — and their counterparts all over Asia.

Death by fan

When I lived in Korea, my adult students used to warn me all the time about sleeping with an electric fan on. I lived in apartments without air conditioning and about 24 hours after arriving in the intense heat and humidity that is August in Korea, I went out and bought a fan.
It was a [...]

Pro. Crast. In. A. Tion.

I am so completely unable to write (or for that matter do anything constructive) today. I thought I’d give blogging a shot and see if that helped.
I’ve basically procrastinated all I can today. I surfed the web. I checked my email repeatedly. I went to the gym. I went to the grocery store. I bought [...]

Fall book picks

It seems to be time for newspapers to run fall booklists. I’ve come across a couple recently, and thought I’d offer my take.
It’s a little depressing for me to say this, but frankly the fiction side of things is looking a lot more promising than the nonfiction. All of the 9/11 books, Iraq books, CIA [...]

Six chapters down

I mailed off the first 130 pages (six chapters) of my book today. Whew! It will now be read by my thesis advisor, and I am off to Boston in a couple of weeks to hear what he has to say about this installment. I must say that the stack of paper looked quite impressive. [...]