Susan Palmer's Exquisite Now

Stuff gets done here

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Category: What they said

Those who inspire me to do better

  • The right question

    Robert McKee’s “Story” is my current best writing friend. It’s a book about how to write screenplays, but it is excellent as a guide to sorting out the architecture of a good story regardless of the format. I love it for being pragmatic. Here’s an example: “Here’s a simple test to apply to any story.…

  • A pile of decent work

    Writers argue, always, about careful crafting on the front end of a project vs. headlong writing to get the story in place before fine tuning sentences and paragraphs. Here’s what Annie Dillard said about that: “The reason to perfect a piece of prose as it progresses — to secure each sentence before building on it…

  • So darn daily

    I think Annie Dillard is speaking about the discipline of writing here, and perhaps about perseverance and yet she never says either word. “A work in progress quickly becomes feral. It reverts to a wild state overnight. It is barely domesticated, a mustang on which you one day fastened a halter, but which now you…