tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5824579679598290332024-03-18T12:12:31.075-07:00The Constant StoryOn writing, art, music, and life.
The blog of writer and journalist David W. BernerDavid W. Bernerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01032217219609798142noreply@blogger.comBlogger191125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-582457967959829033.post-46680405541897107632018-10-15T18:49:00.001-07:002018-10-15T18:49:11.047-07:00New Blog Site: THE WRITER SHED: MUSINGS FROM INSIDE AND OUTSwitching blog sites. New look. New and easier way to follow. If you like writing and the creative life, this is your place.<br />
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Please consider following: <span style="color: blue;"><a href="http://www.thewritershed.com/" target="_blank">THE WRITER SHED</a></span><br />
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<br />David W. Bernerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01032217219609798142noreply@blogger.com148tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-582457967959829033.post-59169047633573053482018-10-14T19:29:00.000-07:002018-10-15T12:47:36.885-07:00Mini Adventures<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYkUc3ITywquqQE3n346mGkFMTAaXBBfHVCa0YH3oBKzLu0ocQ8Ei4oFkLgPDmPQHdHxjZ9CZBsqIy1ZyRtRN7jl_b9IYFf8xdPtNoa1do66Rav26IgWJVpaTJBFgmfatXzbT5Wfkmo6U/s1600/IMG_2784.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYkUc3ITywquqQE3n346mGkFMTAaXBBfHVCa0YH3oBKzLu0ocQ8Ei4oFkLgPDmPQHdHxjZ9CZBsqIy1ZyRtRN7jl_b9IYFf8xdPtNoa1do66Rav26IgWJVpaTJBFgmfatXzbT5Wfkmo6U/s320/IMG_2784.jpg" width="240" /></a>They are sometimes called <a href="https://www.alastairhumphreys.com/microadventures-3/" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">microadventures</span></a>. The term may have been coined by <a href="https://www.alastairhumphreys.com/" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">Alastair Humphreys</span></a> the adventurer and writer. He's written about taking little adventures, stretching to the challenge of the outdoors in simple, inexpensive ways without having to head off for the Himalayas. </div>
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I've been writing a blog over the last several months entitled <span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: blue;"><a href="https://walkswithsam.com/" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">Walks With Sam</span></a>.</span> </span></span>Maybe you have read some of the posts, essays, if you will, based on a season of walks with my dog. I certainly invite you to. There are more than 30 posts now and I have stopped contributing to the blog on a regular basis because, I believe, there may be a book there. Going forward, I plan to occasionally post a walk or a hike, or something significant in the life of Sam and me. But my season of contemplative walking appears over for now. It has run its course. But I've learned much about me, about Sam, about the creative process, about the neighborhood in its larger sense from the people in the houses to the deer in the woods, to the skunks, and rabbits, and the squirrels. It's all been a series of mini adventures. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO8HtgFYuePZByB59QE5N6dpoGW1oZb0RGbD52CSIc-DRUftYcuENyPBUWsTP0ofVz3BSI_spu2bJC7weZ1TntwOKu5DDNib6pU6w8yllE4FK79mXwQpQymhsvvLk6dhb0AveY5Y9vJxI/s1600/IMG_2799.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO8HtgFYuePZByB59QE5N6dpoGW1oZb0RGbD52CSIc-DRUftYcuENyPBUWsTP0ofVz3BSI_spu2bJC7weZ1TntwOKu5DDNib6pU6w8yllE4FK79mXwQpQymhsvvLk6dhb0AveY5Y9vJxI/s320/IMG_2799.jpg" width="240" /></a>With all those words and all the observations behind me, I have retreated to the writing shed to try to shape something, to figure out how all those walks come together, how they fit into each other, how they resonate, why their collectiveness should mean something bigger than a single walk. I am reminded of great literary walkers and of great books about walking. A colleague suggested I read Ted Kooser's book of poems, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Winter-Morning-Walks-Postcards-Harrison/dp/0887483364" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">Winter Morning Walks</span></a>. I have started. It's brilliant and beautiful. </div>
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So, here I am, in the shed, writing, shaping, thinking. This, in many ways, is yet another mini adventure. Not a physical walk, but a mental one through all the walks that came before. It's a good place, this shed. With its books and its painting of <span style="color: blue;"><a href="http://www.dylanthomasboathouse.com/" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">Dylan Thomas' boathouse</span></a>,</span> and art and photography from my sons and stepdaughter. </div>
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Some night I will work late in here and maybe sleep inside these walls among all the essentials of a another mini adventure and dream, dream about this story, this book of walks. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAwfwUb60_QfiIAqFauNl6wqFatSIaIxS8In4BbCmj6Yu8NrcO_drOY0tkB5iDbg92ZvCcRORSfar9aFQcvsL4CNxtqhXnlOJZBaCV_ZM5iYJnNP2ncKCJtUJfnORTFjUZjIGX79j9vrg/s1600/IMG_2792.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAwfwUb60_QfiIAqFauNl6wqFatSIaIxS8In4BbCmj6Yu8NrcO_drOY0tkB5iDbg92ZvCcRORSfar9aFQcvsL4CNxtqhXnlOJZBaCV_ZM5iYJnNP2ncKCJtUJfnORTFjUZjIGX79j9vrg/s320/IMG_2792.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Surely something will rise out of this place. Something will be born here once again. For this is another mini adventure, a search for some tender wisdom, because an adventure, as Alastair Humphreys has written, is "only a state of mind."</div>
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Visit: <a href="https://walkswithsam.com/" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">Walks With Sam</span></a><br />
And: <a href="http://www.davidwberner.com/"><span style="color: blue;">www.davidwberner.com</span></a><br />
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<br />David W. Bernerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01032217219609798142noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-582457967959829033.post-86271987255415512042018-09-23T16:20:00.000-07:002018-09-23T16:20:39.997-07:00Interview with a Bookstore<div style="text-align: justify;">
I'm stealing this idea. I'll be honest. I don't know where I saw it first. Maybe something on LitHub, the great aggregate of literary news. But wherever it was, I'm offering credit their way. </div>
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The idea was to interview a bookstore. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirymw9xbhOQ_l7LuMpQnrBY5B07VXSJbEWH-NeuadGlTuiiLxsvnkDrVDskxYyqzZKFqScTkPhcyz5ur3s3u1Iv0fr5bBpZm-Jk5RUvAwHG12Iw2CcL5IuT0_BiE4PUKDLA_pTrPJjARY/s1600/book-cellar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="413" data-original-width="550" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirymw9xbhOQ_l7LuMpQnrBY5B07VXSJbEWH-NeuadGlTuiiLxsvnkDrVDskxYyqzZKFqScTkPhcyz5ur3s3u1Iv0fr5bBpZm-Jk5RUvAwHG12Iw2CcL5IuT0_BiE4PUKDLA_pTrPJjARY/s320/book-cellar.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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My approach is a bit different than the one I first saw. My questions are not the same. My purpose is different. The original idea was to offer insight into the workings of a book selling business. Mine is to highlight one of Chicago's best literary destinations. This is not hyperbole. <a href="https://www.bookcellarinc.com/" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;"><b>The Book Cellar</b></span></a> in the Lincoln Square neighborhood is a gem, not only in Chicago, but it stands alongside some of the top book selling venues in America, and has been named one of Chicago's best places to write. </div>
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So, here we go. An interview with <a href="https://www.bookcellarinc.com/" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;"><b>The Book Cellar</b></span></a>. (Owner Suzy Takacs)</div>
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Q: What's your favorite section of the store?</div>
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A: The cookbook section and the picture book section. It's a tie. </div>
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Q: What is the bookstore's specialty?</div>
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A: I would describe us as a general bookstore. Our bestselling sections are literary fiction, no-fiction, and board books. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSR_CZST-u4BC64x0_XyJ1e0dXAA5rscaXl_jRLRwudzy2-PsssqKGhGEwa2osTjWzN5o2rlcV5-njvlYfpp3LI4Hn_mJqBv3LrGfUSELeX199qNx4Z6CmSQUt0VJqYodAqCZhWcuhnPQ/s1600/bookcellar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="332" data-original-width="499" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSR_CZST-u4BC64x0_XyJ1e0dXAA5rscaXl_jRLRwudzy2-PsssqKGhGEwa2osTjWzN5o2rlcV5-njvlYfpp3LI4Hn_mJqBv3LrGfUSELeX199qNx4Z6CmSQUt0VJqYodAqCZhWcuhnPQ/s320/bookcellar.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Q: Who is your store's favorite regular?</div>
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A: Bill comes by several days a week and always has something interesting to say about the book world. He clips <i>The New Yorker</i> cartoons for us or <i>Chicago Tribune</i> articles. He reads a crazy number of books and was very quick to finish our store's reading challenge.</div>
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Q: What's the biggest surprise about running a bookstore?</div>
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A: The physical store itself. The mechanics of it are such a tool. From light bulbs to leaks, to HVAC to refrigeration, to people driving into our sidewalk cafe, all of it is a constant expensive and problem to deal with .</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQNNcDLZJoVVUY9QUFixg4Tw5_QUqPG3HsWeBFXLvhVekg9RNjGZzIEYhaTT7amyvVAIXrAgIZLfKdhFI9sr6-6uJFL1KqjYdLJi4RRm1-9R7X6gDyfrmulXFjqz54wYNn1GQrXswAf3E/s1600/9781452162812.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="319" data-original-width="350" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQNNcDLZJoVVUY9QUFixg4Tw5_QUqPG3HsWeBFXLvhVekg9RNjGZzIEYhaTT7amyvVAIXrAgIZLfKdhFI9sr6-6uJFL1KqjYdLJi4RRm1-9R7X6gDyfrmulXFjqz54wYNn1GQrXswAf3E/s320/9781452162812.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Q: Tell us about your most memorable author event.</div>
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A: I think there are two events that will never leave my mind. Ray Bradbury joined our book club by speaker phone. He had not done any speaking events for a long time, and he and all of us became very teary. The second was the pleasure of hosting Studs Terkel. He was a remarkable person and character of Chicago. </div>
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Q: What is children's book you would want adults to read?</div>
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A: <i>Her Right Foot</i> by Dave Eggers and <i>Owen and Mzee</i> by Crag Hatkoff. And also <i>Wonder </i>by RJ Palacios.</div>
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Q: How does your store build community?</div>
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A: By hosting story time and local author events. Really all events in general. From a spelling bee to Independent Bookstore Day to working with the Chamber of Commerce. They are all reasons for us to be part of the community our store lives in and part of the literary community. </div>
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Last year, Suzy Takacs and <a href="https://www.bookcellarinc.com/" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;"><b>The Book Cellar</b></span></a> won the Spirit Award from the Chicago Writers Association for its support of Chicago writers. </div>
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<b>The Book Cellar </b>is at 4736 N. Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL. </div>
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It's been said that writers are loners, angsty artists who seek solitude. We are weirdos who want to be left alone, by ourselves, away from everyone and everything.</div>
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Okay. That's fair. And somewhat true. I think.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihjETfgwK8vnVIlJ8p7JK32utwZ-hsyZUj-VBVG376_45OYJsm-yt7WaxPAI7kbWbRk_o2rShQs1pAEWl2uy-PP4zeCpIvmTIKQA7jN_IRdVkEnv0HswkRkH7A3jv9cjnJJxoTdVolnt4/s1600/journey-within-1024x1024.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihjETfgwK8vnVIlJ8p7JK32utwZ-hsyZUj-VBVG376_45OYJsm-yt7WaxPAI7kbWbRk_o2rShQs1pAEWl2uy-PP4zeCpIvmTIKQA7jN_IRdVkEnv0HswkRkH7A3jv9cjnJJxoTdVolnt4/s200/journey-within-1024x1024.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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If you write, do you like being alone? Are you a solitude junkie?</div>
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I like aloneness. I'm comfortable with it. Always have been. Too much stimulus can be overwhelming. I can't think. I can't breathe. But that doesn't mean I always like to write in solitude.</div>
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I've written here before about the shed I have on my property, the writing space, built solely for that purpose. Built for me alone, to be alone to write. And I love it. Love what it represents and how it functions for me and my work. I am tucked away in a small space, surrounded by books and art. But yet there are times I want to be in the middle of life, not away from it. So, I write in coffee shops, busy one with the whir of the espresso machine, the clatter of ceramic cups, and constant human conversations blanketing the space. But I'm there solely for the sounds of life, not the acceptance of others.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2QBF_oNzUGI7Or0sroreoHgRk83qtSnH1Zjm_XtJGWDPhovF2xcL52YZcEeSbaC0Y6aKPz3_Gl8S5kGURXjRlOOo-7WE9fKz8Hi8f5UZoLD3uZDbjOvBKWPQZqjI7nzWnnZR4pi7PfHw/s1600/modersohn-b_1906_rainer-maria-rilke-768x1002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ0JVtfcUWABVxHxMpQnSiL_M4AAWnhUW_bkUjj4mEsx0fKHEg0OfAkjBFD1u-5LyVSAOGmsypndPQBm7WVGfKcqycTd3AA_iVOPPUyHbvCzR2p_2KuInd21idi_RrvoPpgEe5daX6Tjk/s1600/110643.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="810" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ0JVtfcUWABVxHxMpQnSiL_M4AAWnhUW_bkUjj4mEsx0fKHEg0OfAkjBFD1u-5LyVSAOGmsypndPQBm7WVGfKcqycTd3AA_iVOPPUyHbvCzR2p_2KuInd21idi_RrvoPpgEe5daX6Tjk/s200/110643.jpg" width="158" /></a></div>
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In Rilke's famous correspondence to a budding writer, <i>Letters to a Young Poet</i>, he advises the new artist to stop seeking adoration or affirmation. Never, he says, ask anyone if a work of art is any good. He says the answers are not <i>outside</i> yourself, they are <i>inside</i>. And with this, comes more confirmation that a writer must be one who craves solitude, where he can contemplate his work alone, without the influences of others. The writer, Rilke believed, must find his way through this with his own compass, not the compass of another. </div>
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For years, early in my writing career, I would carry Rilke's book around with me in my work bag. I'd read passages on the commuter train or in my office. I would pull it out when I had doubts, when I needed to tell myself my writing, whatever I was working on, was worthy. With the help of Rilke, I was able to believe in my own art without affirmation from outside, and I was able to accept the aloneness that comes with that process.</div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2QBF_oNzUGI7Or0sroreoHgRk83qtSnH1Zjm_XtJGWDPhovF2xcL52YZcEeSbaC0Y6aKPz3_Gl8S5kGURXjRlOOo-7WE9fKz8Hi8f5UZoLD3uZDbjOvBKWPQZqjI7nzWnnZR4pi7PfHw/s1600/modersohn-b_1906_rainer-maria-rilke-768x1002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1002" data-original-width="768" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2QBF_oNzUGI7Or0sroreoHgRk83qtSnH1Zjm_XtJGWDPhovF2xcL52YZcEeSbaC0Y6aKPz3_Gl8S5kGURXjRlOOo-7WE9fKz8Hi8f5UZoLD3uZDbjOvBKWPQZqjI7nzWnnZR4pi7PfHw/s200/modersohn-b_1906_rainer-maria-rilke-768x1002.jpg" width="153" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rainer Maria Rilke</td></tr>
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So, yes, writers like to be alone. But there's a good reason for this. If we are uncertain, unsure of our own artistry at times—and we are, like anyone who creates—then we need the solitude in order to work things out with ourselves, for we are the only ones we need to convince.</div>
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Tell your alone stories. Why is aloneness important to your writing? Or is it? Share. </div>
David W. Bernerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01032217219609798142noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-582457967959829033.post-70308097641218079092018-08-27T19:10:00.001-07:002018-08-27T19:10:40.600-07:00The Best Quotes on WritingI dislike the many online articles and blog posts that offer a list of dos and don'ts on writing. They are nothing but click bait or shortcuts to the real work of writing. These are the ones that tell you to "start with action," or "show, don't tell," or the "ten rules of writing a novel." They are a disservice to the work, a disservice to the art, a disservice to you as a writer. Are there best practices? Of course. But good writing is not about rules and formulas.<br />
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However.<br />
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I might not like the articles that tell you to "do these ten things to write a winning novel," but I do love the quotes by writers that suggest a path to follow. Those little clips, sound bites (if you will) of inspiration and support are wonderful.<br />
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What are your favorites? <b>Share them in the comments</b>. These are mine.<br />
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Here we go...<br />
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<i>"The road to hell is paved with works-in-progress."</i> - Philip Roth<br />
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<i>"Style is to forget all styles."</i> - Jules Renard<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZnmoYzj_UmB2Zya9rOhYoXP4W1jurXQXoCzrg10RkufK8tyYn8nqMwYUAQhXw_YAwKp4AQHmrOEbd4cQqaq6o6S4w_wdfsJGL-VhMONG425JtAFJC0j8bA98G6UHFkt_m_RErN2Yv-qc/s1600/52065374-a4fd59186f325ac5e7b56c90323ee2f1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="735" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZnmoYzj_UmB2Zya9rOhYoXP4W1jurXQXoCzrg10RkufK8tyYn8nqMwYUAQhXw_YAwKp4AQHmrOEbd4cQqaq6o6S4w_wdfsJGL-VhMONG425JtAFJC0j8bA98G6UHFkt_m_RErN2Yv-qc/s320/52065374-a4fd59186f325ac5e7b56c90323ee2f1.jpg" width="195" /></a><em>"Genius gives birth, talent delivers. What Rembrandt or Van Gogh saw in the night can never be seen again. <b>Born</b> writers of the future are amazed already at what they’re seeing now, what we’ll all see in time for the first time, and then see imitated many times by <b>made</b> writers.”</em> - Jack Kerouac<br />
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<i>“When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people, not characters. A character is a caricature.” - Ernest Hemingway</i><br />
<i>"To gain your own voice, you must forget about having it heard."</i> - Allen Ginsberg<br />
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<i>"Writing means sharing. It's part of the human condition to share things - thoughts, ideas, opinions."</i> - Paul Coehlo<br />
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<i>"Writing if an act of faith, not a trick of grammar."</i> - E.B. White<br />
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<i>"Art is never finished, only abandoned."</i> - Leonardo da Vinci<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9q2iuspnSc0jwwicd_fikrROMhREeayoPzHgWT8yqqgmiZ4Sgvv7VmuOWcDphd-1P3Jk8_j9wjq9s2eh5UnezNEmDrYFU1QgzOqXYQ0CkKvTqirzD2xnx0C4V40jShtSnoIChvR6Hlu8/s1600/1e5c534960235016cacf91fdfb41e665.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="718" height="166" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9q2iuspnSc0jwwicd_fikrROMhREeayoPzHgWT8yqqgmiZ4Sgvv7VmuOWcDphd-1P3Jk8_j9wjq9s2eh5UnezNEmDrYFU1QgzOqXYQ0CkKvTqirzD2xnx0C4V40jShtSnoIChvR6Hlu8/s200/1e5c534960235016cacf91fdfb41e665.jpg" width="200" /></a><i> </i><br />
<i>"Don't bend; don't water it down; don't try to make it logical; don't edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly."</i> - Franz Kafka <br />
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<i>"I write entirely to find out what is on my mind. what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I'm seeing, and what it means."</i> - Joan Didion<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6sCvNFYzbgskdia2UBJ03HVpucSuLkf2Ww48tcUYCRVHQwSm2DnIJL5ECTJ9S6RjhfzkZUm9fJ1kMgdC_ce4vb3dx7zgMyaKrhLB4KlLk1DoEKDZvAKZFxU9OphhyphenhyphenETIE9xERtIiqxeQ/s1600/1616576539-writing-quotes-hd-wallpaper-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6sCvNFYzbgskdia2UBJ03HVpucSuLkf2Ww48tcUYCRVHQwSm2DnIJL5ECTJ9S6RjhfzkZUm9fJ1kMgdC_ce4vb3dx7zgMyaKrhLB4KlLk1DoEKDZvAKZFxU9OphhyphenhyphenETIE9xERtIiqxeQ/s320/1616576539-writing-quotes-hd-wallpaper-2.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
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<i>"I think there are a lot of similarities between writing and music. Music is much more direct and much more emotional and that's the level I want to be at when I'm writing."</i> - Karl Ove Knausgaard <br />
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<i>"Be courageous and try to write in a way that scares you a little."</i> - Holly Gerth<br />
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And one of my very favorites...</div>
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<i>"Writing is the painting of the voice."</i> - Voltaire<br />
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Got more? <br />
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<br />David W. Bernerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01032217219609798142noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-582457967959829033.post-60205440636583827772018-08-15T18:46:00.000-07:002018-08-15T18:48:46.335-07:00I Never Read it. You?<div style="text-align: justify;">
I'm a writer. I write. And writers read. You can't write without being a skilled reader. Reading like a writer is important to understand structure and pace and tone from the greatest of the great. Reading other writers works is a serious endeavor and should be considered important to the craft. </div>
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But...</div>
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And this is a big but. </div>
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What if you haven't read some of the books you and everyone else think you should have? I'm talking about the books that are considered essential, books one believes every writer worth his weight should have read—the best of all time, the greatest of a generation, modern classics, or just...classics, period.</div>
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Here is a list of books I have <i>not</i> read, or at least never finished after trying to get through them. This, I'll admit, is a confession in many ways. But like a lot of confessions, it is cathartic. </div>
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<b><i>Ulysses</i></b>, James Joyce. Started. Bounced around it. Never finished.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEqI-yDZUlOpDi4so3GJ3Kwlo-2gcLDT61zc4dV0LeNKaIdhmBIexAoZP9Yrlh5QuvI1rK3vk-Czx8qcU4TnmEYOfdWV0RIuzyYRpop_2oz98cYINbziA_rleyiWpTeJoF-wx7Coo0rqI/s1600/Ulysses.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="947" data-original-width="965" height="314" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEqI-yDZUlOpDi4so3GJ3Kwlo-2gcLDT61zc4dV0LeNKaIdhmBIexAoZP9Yrlh5QuvI1rK3vk-Czx8qcU4TnmEYOfdWV0RIuzyYRpop_2oz98cYINbziA_rleyiWpTeJoF-wx7Coo0rqI/s320/Ulysses.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b><i>Infinite Jest</i>,</b> David Foster Wallace. Started. Never finished.</div>
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<b><i>The Brothers Karamazov</i></b>, Fyodor Dostoevsky. Never read.<br />
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<b><i>The Goldfinch</i></b>, Donna Tartt. Started. Never finished. Lost interest. </div>
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<b><i>War and Peace</i>,</b> Leo Tolstoy. Never started. </div>
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<i><b>Madame Bovary</b></i>, Gustave Flaubert. Started. Never finished.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV3Fp2C3llIcehcOHciysMg5Zzza_H_G3SBRLopAD3KF3IXwGqX0kgszbRcurnTL7SmssyPrMeFJXzt3ib2JPTLDSsLDV2xE1uMBcwHU0OtyYy5h5Jk7fvQaq3Ag3SRF8p-212t9HVKj8/s1600/war+and+peace.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="203" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV3Fp2C3llIcehcOHciysMg5Zzza_H_G3SBRLopAD3KF3IXwGqX0kgszbRcurnTL7SmssyPrMeFJXzt3ib2JPTLDSsLDV2xE1uMBcwHU0OtyYy5h5Jk7fvQaq3Ag3SRF8p-212t9HVKj8/s1600/war+and+peace.jpg" /></a></div>
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<b><i>Oliver Twist</i></b>, Charles Dickens. Started twice. Never finished. </div>
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Nearly all of these books are on a shelf in my house or office or writing shed. Maybe someday I'll read at least one. Someday. </div>
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There are many reasons for reading great works of literature, the modern classics. They are cannons of the art; they are models of literary brilliance. Knowing them, at least reading them once, helps to understand the world of literature and the world itself. Many say the first great American novel was <i>The Adventures of Tom Sawyer</i>. Every American novel afterward comes from what Twain started. So, reading a classic gives us insight and perspective into the history of literature and the authors who have contributed the most.<br />
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A classic is a book that people most always say they are "re-reading" not "reading." But in reality, many of us are not being truthful when we say this. It just sounds better, more appropriate, more well-read if we say we are "re-reading"<i> Great Expectations</i> than saying we are reading it for the first time. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFIfVm_PNbS40rnldLtW7qIvm6LKJ7d8SWoxfQRU7_-lqRwejOgDV9D1l8h52FtpqrUWk6en7dAsotlSLgyvPNHR3g3iogEZnQ0gep8JHcmiOlExYmbDLaehfnKr-xAyNTFGyFZ14yqAg/s1600/499701134.0.x.1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="820" data-original-width="1024" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFIfVm_PNbS40rnldLtW7qIvm6LKJ7d8SWoxfQRU7_-lqRwejOgDV9D1l8h52FtpqrUWk6en7dAsotlSLgyvPNHR3g3iogEZnQ0gep8JHcmiOlExYmbDLaehfnKr-xAyNTFGyFZ14yqAg/s320/499701134.0.x.1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
I'm a big Hemingway fan, especially his short stories and his nonfiction. But I have never read <i>For Whom the Bell Tolls</i>. So, a month ago I bought a used copy of it. I've read the first ten pages. Since then, nothing. I plan to get to it; I really do. And maybe someday I can say I'm "re-reading" <i>For Whom the Bell Tolls</i> and consider myself a well-read man. </div>
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What classic have you <i>not</i> read? I'm sure you can add to the list...if you dare to admit. </div>
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<br />David W. Bernerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01032217219609798142noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-582457967959829033.post-56135467023824649262018-08-01T12:28:00.003-07:002018-08-01T12:58:25.427-07:00The Dog in Books<div style="text-align: justify;">
Been thinking a good deal about dogs in literature. I'm writing a blog these days, one I hope will turn into a book in the future, about walking your dog—for the good of the dog and for me. The bigger theme is the joy of a good walk and how a good dog opens up the mind to reexamine. reevaluate, renew.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje4o3M8IGIfQrqv3V2GZVg5Y3mg8wKhjFB-VjZ5_1SSQaooVsjf3TtcNvysvQGpbCTcEeMS-_Y8AmvpZeI8WZE0NPtF3-KR_I3ymTxAgYVFW3wFNygACPGToOLg4S2rZKKD78hQtsm-G0/s1600/john-steinbeck-charlie.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="551" data-original-width="680" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje4o3M8IGIfQrqv3V2GZVg5Y3mg8wKhjFB-VjZ5_1SSQaooVsjf3TtcNvysvQGpbCTcEeMS-_Y8AmvpZeI8WZE0NPtF3-KR_I3ymTxAgYVFW3wFNygACPGToOLg4S2rZKKD78hQtsm-G0/s320/john-steinbeck-charlie.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">John Steinbeck with "Charley" from <i> Travels with Charley</i></td></tr>
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Dogs in books. Ah, there are so many and such memorable ones. There's Toto of <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wonderful_Wizard_of_Oz" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">The Wizard of Oz</span></a></i>, and Clifford of the Children's books, and Snoopy. Buck from <a href="http://london.sonoma.edu/writings/CallOfTheWild/" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;"><i>The Call of the Wild</i></span></a> is as famous as they get. There's Fang from the <i><span style="color: blue;"><a href="https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS525US525&q=harry+potter+books&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi2-davwMzcAhXq5IMKHdiEADkQ1QIIswIoAg&biw=1260&bih=614" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">Harry Potter</span></a> </span>series<span style="color: blue;">, </span></i>Argos from <i><a href="http://www.ancient-literature.com/greece_homer_odyssey.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">The Odyssey</span></a></i>, and <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Old-Yeller-HarperClassics-Fred-Gipson/dp/0064403823" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">Old Yeller</span></a>.</i> <i><a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/cujo-stephen-king/1100315976#/" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">Cujo</span></a></i> and Jip from <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/dec/18/the-dog-in-the-dickensian-imaginationm-dickens-beryl-gray-review" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">David Copperfield</span></a>. Every single dog in <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/101-Dalmatians-Dodie-Smith/dp/0760704066" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">The One Hundred and One Dalmatians</span></a></i>. There's Marley and Lassie and Charley, John Steinbeck's traveling dog.<br />
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These lists of dogs in books are easy to find; they are all over the internet. What interests me most are not the many lists, not the fact that dogs can be such great characters in literature, but rather that they are such important ones, one to which we are inevitably drawn. </div>
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Humans have a long history with wolves, the dog's ancestral predecessor. In pre-historic times, man kept a few around for protection and they were relatively trainable for hunting. In time, wolves became tamer and turned into the dogs we now know. But why do we keep them around? They cost a lot. They take up a great deal of time. Maybe it's that they just make us feel good. But why?<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh79UZnGi0AB8yA-M_srQd9fzSsUnFioFW9HC-P_P_6uUebRBxVNhDrE7ap5H3k5elhcUCs_YxSAt7sEFd837DqnXMbwPrbT_PUt6b0ZR-cG2mos0zFaeZ6o4l1InleFeeEdYWClsWRQL8/s1600/theartof_racingintherain.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="373" data-original-width="250" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh79UZnGi0AB8yA-M_srQd9fzSsUnFioFW9HC-P_P_6uUebRBxVNhDrE7ap5H3k5elhcUCs_YxSAt7sEFd837DqnXMbwPrbT_PUt6b0ZR-cG2mos0zFaeZ6o4l1InleFeeEdYWClsWRQL8/s200/theartof_racingintherain.jpg" width="133" /></a></div>
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Some scientists suggest we keep pets, have dogs, because it's cultural. Others do, so we do. But other experts say our love affair with dogs comes from being social creatures. Humans are constantly seeking relationships with others and that also means a relationship with animals. Dogs happen to be the most amenable. We can share our stories with dogs; they can share theirs with us in their own way. We carry on through life together, as friends. And we crave this relationship, just as we do with other humans. Social we are. Social we will always be. And dogs live in the same dynamic.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRHRWG9KPLOjA5gk0iC9VZOAGqtZtPjTRZH3ZDyVvwOgcj94FrCsx39klpIAh23gZt4wfW6Bq0OQBr8N_MumLCxQXw41eygy8-uz732bj3RT4O6jPug9Fu2RSMML1JxXHu-56uSRlHxdw/s1600/IMG_1855+%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="355" data-original-width="433" height="163" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRHRWG9KPLOjA5gk0iC9VZOAGqtZtPjTRZH3ZDyVvwOgcj94FrCsx39klpIAh23gZt4wfW6Bq0OQBr8N_MumLCxQXw41eygy8-uz732bj3RT4O6jPug9Fu2RSMML1JxXHu-56uSRlHxdw/s200/IMG_1855+%25281%2529.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sam of "Walks With Sam"</td></tr>
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Sharing stories. That's why we love dogs in books. They help further a theme, twist a plot, create emotion, build a narrative. Not only in literature but in our real lives, too. </div>
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I urge you to follow my own dog stories <a href="https://twitter.com/WalksWithSam" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">@walkswithsam</span></a> and the blog <a href="https://walkswithsam.com/" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">Walks With Sam</span></a>. </div>
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<br />David W. Bernerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01032217219609798142noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-582457967959829033.post-65171846863738430892018-07-25T09:30:00.000-07:002018-09-25T12:01:18.704-07:00Something I Thought I'd Never Do<div style="text-align: justify;">
I've written creative nonfiction, journalism, fiction, and memoir. When it's all said and done, and if I had to label myself, I guess I would call myself a memoirist. But even that is not quite right. <i>Must</i> I label myself? </div>
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Maybe naming what I am can help me keep my work in perspective, give it some parameters. But even with that said, I read experimental works like the book I'm reading now—<a href="http://www.philiphoare.co.uk/" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;"><b><i>Rising Tide Falling Star</i></b></span> </a>by Philip Hoare. There is no easy way to categorize this work. It's part fiction, part memoir, part journalism, part diary. It's as if the author is writing what simply comes to him through his heart and soul, and labels are just ridiculous constructs, bins bookstores need to keep the place organized. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_xN70KrPLBN_WY0Ec4hj-rmvjm7lgWAds6nN0NLGR8phZ-4ymztS9cwqNnHdTHA6EncNYqSEHAjqUSYcJovdJoVz1aVq7rFFP1XdiNHkr_ahVgGCFehzTLwZCF928bNj1hBUYuyelW-c/s1600/fourth-estate-e-books-general-risingtidefallingstar-186379330.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="965" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_xN70KrPLBN_WY0Ec4hj-rmvjm7lgWAds6nN0NLGR8phZ-4ymztS9cwqNnHdTHA6EncNYqSEHAjqUSYcJovdJoVz1aVq7rFFP1XdiNHkr_ahVgGCFehzTLwZCF928bNj1hBUYuyelW-c/s320/fourth-estate-e-books-general-risingtidefallingstar-186379330.jpg" width="198" /></a></div>
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This is on my mind today because I am now writing, simultaneously, a work of fiction and a series of personal essays on the exact same subject, with the same characters, with the same theme, same premise, same...everything. Well, nearly. The fiction is, yes, fiction. Not every detail or movement in the story is fact, but it is based on relative truth. It feels a bit like a writing exercise, the prompt of a professor to try writing a personal essay then writing the same story as a work of fiction. The student is to learn something from this. I'm not sure I am. </div>
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But what I am learning, slowly,<span style="font-family: inherit;"> is how to make this "story" the most impactful it can be. Is it best told as fiction or is it best told as fact? Not journalis</span>m, but the essence of truth, the kind of thing Joan Didion spoke about. In an interview in the <i><a href="https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/3439/joan-didion-the-art-of-fiction-no-71-joan-didion" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">Paris Review</span></a></i>, Didion talked about how different the genres are for a writer who works in both.</div>
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<b><i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">"<span style="background-color: white; color: #414141; display: inline; float: none; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Writing nonfiction is more like sculpture, a matter of shaping the research into the finished thing. Novels are like paintings, specifically watercolors. Every stroke you put down you have to go with. Of course you can rewrite, but the original strokes are still there in the texture of the thing."</span></span></span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #414141; display: inline; float: none; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Every word, sentence in the fiction will always be there, underneath the rewrites. The personal essays are less layered. However, unlike the fiction, they evolve into what it is I'm writing to say only as I write. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #414141; display: inline; float: none; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Another Didion-ism, one many of us know...</span></span></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>“I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.” </b></span></span></i></h1>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1ExZhyphenhyphenXroVCsodSe9Wtc11rns6tJQJmMrh-LDYiidlSdi5wcnTrMAP9z8xOFOKD_XDv33awuuOL5DF_cZsTIjwfUu4uGEGciWur2jaBKCVW1WS1Zc4nAI62hZcRgOrxoOrIm1VGFrUnU/s1600/Joan-Didion.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="701" data-original-width="900" height="155" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1ExZhyphenhyphenXroVCsodSe9Wtc11rns6tJQJmMrh-LDYiidlSdi5wcnTrMAP9z8xOFOKD_XDv33awuuOL5DF_cZsTIjwfUu4uGEGciWur2jaBKCVW1WS1Zc4nAI62hZcRgOrxoOrIm1VGFrUnU/s200/Joan-Didion.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #414141; display: inline; float: none; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">The theme only reveals itself through the work of writing. This is true, to some extent, as I write fiction, but it is absolutely the case when I write the personal essay. I have no idea what I'm feeling about the piece before I write it. In fiction, I know where I'm going but really have no idea how to get there. It's like driving without Google Maps. In fact, no map at all. Even the old paper ones we'd buy at the gas station. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #414141; display: inline; float: none; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #414141; display: inline; float: none; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">I've never done this before, writing the same story, essentially, from the perspective of two different genres. But like Philip Hoare's work, I wonder, in the end, if it matters. Someone is going to label what it is I've written, someone will decide if it's the fiction or the essays that get the job done, or if these pieces say something meaningful at all. But for the writer, I wonder, is that our job? Determining what will be "impactful?" Isn't our job just to write what we think is the truest way to say what we want? Whether that be fiction or nonfiction, poems or prose, doesn't really matter, does it? </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #414141; display: inline; float: none; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #414141; display: inline; float: none; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">I'm going to keep writing both, at the same time, and the answers to those questions will reveal themselves in time, I suspect. Like Didion, I'm going <i>to find out what I think</i>. </span></span></span></div>
David W. Bernerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01032217219609798142noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-582457967959829033.post-15711072850564676212018-06-18T14:51:00.003-07:002018-06-18T14:51:44.761-07:00Audiobooks and the Sound of My Father's Voice <div style="text-align: justify;">
Even now with Father's Day in the rearview mirror, my dad remains on my mind. He pops up there most days in some fashion—in the ninth inning of a Cubs game, when his and my beloved Steelers play, when the final round of the U.S. Open is underway on Dad's Day, as it always is. When I run the mower on the lawn, Dad invariably comes to me. He taught me to cut the grass in strips, back and forth, and then the next time to go the opposite way. "It helps the grass grow better," he said. Don't know if that's really true, but I do it anyway. Always have. </div>
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This Father's Day, my younger son Graham wanted to make me something in his wood shop. My father's DNA was passed to him. Dad was good with his hands. He made furniture and was once, when he was a young man, a carpenter who worked building homes. Graham makes wooden pens, bottle openers, wine bottle stoppers, and men's hand razors. That's what he wanted to make me, a razor of rosewood, and he wanted to do it with me there as he turned the wood on his lathe. He even let me try it. "I want it to be something we made <i>together</i>," he said. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_rpJwwLwovwnzvysbn7gA6-vMXZnV81gbgkjk1jRizG8U-yW8AUhOMA4GHuIWuOdnRYkEzYM7yIbOq6N6zKuQBrsHVzVWVSBNWdj6gm7I3sGShPwVkA5fYXt4knYEr_yxrTRUt85F6Ng/s1600/four+generations.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1505" data-original-width="1304" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_rpJwwLwovwnzvysbn7gA6-vMXZnV81gbgkjk1jRizG8U-yW8AUhOMA4GHuIWuOdnRYkEzYM7yIbOq6N6zKuQBrsHVzVWVSBNWdj6gm7I3sGShPwVkA5fYXt4knYEr_yxrTRUt85F6Ng/s320/four+generations.jpg" width="276" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>Left to right:</i> My father, my great grandfather,<br /> my grandfather, and me as a boy. </span></td></tr>
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Watching Graham work, I could see my father standing there, smiling. He would have been over the moon to have seen his grandson working with his hands, sawdust flying, crafting wood into a work of art. I could hear his voice, saying, "Graham, that is beautiful work." </div>
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I miss my father. And the one thing I miss most is his voice, hearing him laugh, tell a joke, teach me something about lawn care, groan at the television as the leader at the U.S. Open misses a birdie putt. </div>
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A couple of weeks ago, I was reading about how author <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/17/opinion/audiobooks-print.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">Michael Lewis</span></a> will be offering some of his work through <a href="https://www.audible.com/search/ref=a_hp_tseft?advsearchKeywords=david%20w%20berner&filterby=field-keywords" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">Audible</span></a> only—audiobook only. Not print. No book. No ebook. Voice only. There was some criticism of this approach. Authors scolded him for abandoning the printed word. I think that's a bit harsh. He's only celebrating a new delivery platform. Nothing wrong with that. Audiobooks still lag far behind print or even ebooks. But it's really not about the sales aspect, I believe. It's about the voice. </div>
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Storytelling began with tales told through speech, not print, not pantings on cave walls, but with verbal communication, not formal language as we know it, but rather grunts or snarls. Still, the stories were communicated through the human voice, and there is no reason why that process, through the modern-day audiobook, shouldn't be continued and celebrated. I'm considering a new project in a year or so that may be offered as an audiobook only because I believe in the human voice—its nuanced tellings, its emotional shades of expression—delicate story elements that could never be duplicated in print. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyubxGsC2KJ3Yj_YlsdbaFaDzyqVcmFY-nnOT6nHrQfpnpqurqxxPXDpwntOCOv09LG83CZh4cwlP9su-G05wmCq1NUlQo6D7vnc85hY5xvGZhv9f1Dbc1TG1_ANm1lfSh5aVrwGEuq_Y/s1600/DavidwBernerRead2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1190" data-original-width="1372" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyubxGsC2KJ3Yj_YlsdbaFaDzyqVcmFY-nnOT6nHrQfpnpqurqxxPXDpwntOCOv09LG83CZh4cwlP9su-G05wmCq1NUlQo6D7vnc85hY5xvGZhv9f1Dbc1TG1_ANm1lfSh5aVrwGEuq_Y/s320/DavidwBernerRead2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Working on audiobook of the book of essays<br /><i><a href="https://www.audible.com/pd/Bios-Memoirs/Theres-a-Hamster-in-the-Dashboard-Audiobook/B01MRA6I4E?ref=a_search_c3_lProduct_1_1&pf_rd_p=e81b7c27-6880-467a-b5a7-13cef5d729fe&pf_rd_r=VYE07DNFTGPZXVTMYVDH&" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">There's a Hamster in the Dashboard</span></a></i></span></td></tr>
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What I would give to hear the voice of my father tell a story, his expressive baritone working its way through setting, dialogue, character building. My father was a good storyteller. He was part Irish, so that my have something to do with it, right? But Irish or not, the human voice gives us something we could never experience in print. Yes, I love reading. I love writing. I love beautiful prose. But <i>telling </i>a story, voice only, may be the most primal, and at the same time, the most natural way of sharing our stories. </div>
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I think Dad would agree</div>
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.David W. Bernerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01032217219609798142noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-582457967959829033.post-29444409693656182392018-05-30T09:52:00.003-07:002018-06-18T07:01:01.426-07:00Father's Day Book Giveaway! <h4>
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<i>GIVEAWAY IS OVER. Winners are being notified. Thank you for entering! </i></h4>
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<i>* * * </i></h4>
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<i><span style="color: blue;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Well-Respected-Man-David-W-Berner/dp/194826000X/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1527109570&sr=8-1-fkmr0" target="_blank">A Well-Respected Man</a></span></i> is celebrating FATHER'S DAY. And you can, too. </h4>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaKf4dRv4VUYoVE4ecdbZnvy_SaQs_aDOmn5OuOV82A6Fh2xPqWFIJjnB32XIaJwXmPs6cYkQRR-6pmaH_gZkkjVHQGl2kL-Ra7x8QmAuEXDtDjOt0Vr8zqmJXd-aVLR-U5KkpoX_uG18/s1600/51VyhxyqzJL._SX321_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="323" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaKf4dRv4VUYoVE4ecdbZnvy_SaQs_aDOmn5OuOV82A6Fh2xPqWFIJjnB32XIaJwXmPs6cYkQRR-6pmaH_gZkkjVHQGl2kL-Ra7x8QmAuEXDtDjOt0Vr8zqmJXd-aVLR-U5KkpoX_uG18/s320/51VyhxyqzJL._SX321_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" width="206" /></a></div>
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We are giving away the novel by award-winning author David W. Berner through his blog -- where you are right now -- in an online raffle. Five gifted KINDLE Editions and THREE print editions (<gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="32adcdf3-89a2-4fe3-a622-eefc0467a62b" id="299a4455-3561-47c8-b21d-02938f3ba44b"><gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="e6986af4-4eb0-4c77-9b84-ab774fa3bf43" id="a10617b4-f762-49a3-838a-7778170aa8ea"><gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="e1905964-a144-451c-808b-bbabe5ed9515" id="d9a79eb0-0183-4c34-86b3-ffa13354d743">softcover</gs></gs></gs>) are up for grabs. This means EIGHT WINNERS selected randomly. FREE to enter. <b>Deadline</b>: June 18, 2018, 11:59pm.<br />
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<b>Reviews:</b> "Absorbing.” - <i>Midwest Review of Books</i><br />
"Masterful." - <i>The Jack Kerouac Project</i><br />
<i> </i>"Thought-provoking." - <i>The Hemingway Foundation </i><br />
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Here's how to enter.<br />
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In the email listed below, enter your FULL NAME, FULL ADDRESS, and the EMAIL where you would like the KINDLE EDITION sent electronically if you win. Print winners will have their copies mailed to the address given.<br />
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<b>PLEASE INDICATE WHETHER YOU ARE ENTERING THE KINDLE OR *PRINT* GIVEAWAY. </b><br />
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Send all giveaway entries to this email address: <b><a href="mailto:BernerBookGiveaway@gmail.com" target="_blank">BernerBookGiveaway@gmail.com</a></b><br />
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Winners will be chosen randomly and will be notified June 19, 2018 by email. Entries received after 11:59PM June 18, 2018 will be deemed ineligible. Decisions are final.<br />
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Good luck! And happy Father's Day!<br />
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<b><i>A WELL-RESPECTED MAN: A novel </i></b> (Strategic Publishing, Release: 4/5/18)<br />
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<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 14px; padding: 0px;">
Chicago Professor Martin Gregory is the author of a critically acclaimed novel of love and longing, a cult favorite among women. The book brings him unexpected status and prestige, but also unwelcome fame.</div>
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A love affair with one of his students derails his career and breaks his heart. Coming to terms with a life knocked off balance, Martin retreats to a quiet English village, only to be confronted at his flat by a <gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="909579dc-e08f-4013-93d7-2659844d5a60" id="f5f65460-bcd4-4854-8c2b-2aa420a35a17"><gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="1b467a4f-2192-4334-a6fd-d5012538c587" id="55ac2cdf-7b47-4045-92e0-dc936e7097f6"><gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="ca9059b9-82d7-4c4b-a50e-24248e668e2c" id="267fd7e5-334d-498e-92ba-7855a6cee0ec">mystery</gs></gs></gs> woman with an unexpected message and an implausible request, one that could alter his life forever.</div>
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A cross-country train trip, a visit to his father's grave, and a re-examination of a deep loss will eventually reveal either Martin's greatest character or unearth his most heartbreaking flaw.</div>
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<em>A Well-Respected Man</em> is about the hard choices we make to find fulfillment, and the search to discover meaning in both the life we choose and the one thrust upon us.</div>
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<em>"Thought-provoking<gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="4d23c21c-0797-4068-b737-fdbeb4f3267e" id="5a8209de-d6ea-4b76-ab9d-cd450b2b8319"><gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="1a72e0a4-ad58-408c-8c04-9789c6f9dd84" id="03fb3389-4738-4d3b-9229-09e00a778df6"><gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="94d2f345-9ec5-4f5c-a9a0-a2f275e69592" id="c0a8fe9c-4c29-4745-9a7e-a5528db91be1"> ...</gs></gs></gs> a story of how love never goes away."</em> - <strong>Nancy W. Sindelar, Ernest Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park, Illinois</strong></div>
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<em>"Award-winning author David W. Berner intertwines complex timelines in effortless fashion while creating characters of great depth. Typical of <gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="6b31cc39-5728-471c-acf8-4a3c9390f186" id="0538d1f0-b5fe-4513-9b3f-5dc890a9d81b"><gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="90beae51-1e8c-42a1-98bf-d6cb58dca09f" id="a3def7ba-70d4-4259-aefa-637ee3ce447f"><gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="689e0db0-0894-4177-aab4-9656dd6f3171" id="0b8d067b-952d-4afb-82e5-ce1ace08376f">Berner's work</gs></gs></gs>, the reader is left to contemplate life's toughest decisions. A Well-Respected Man is a must read!"</em> - <strong>Geralyn Hessalu Magrady, author of <em>Lines</em></strong></div>
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David W. Berner is the recipient of the Chicago Writers Association Award, the Royal Dragonfly Book Award, and has been <gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="f1422d92-a621-47fc-bd36-36eb65f223f1" id="107b99af-1fda-4c0b-817d-70204662dd14"><gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="07c459b8-3de2-4f42-95a7-419217fd2000" id="9dabb253-1218-481f-b725-ce367a159107"><gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="22947ed2-6d32-41c3-b5b5-43aa1fbec122" id="ad3bee8b-e3af-4fd1-9cc6-0ddf4aba2e95">short-listed</gs></gs></gs> for the Eric Hoffer Grand Prize. He has been honored as the writer-in-residence at the Ernest Hemingway Birthplace Home in Oak Park, Illinois, and at the Jack Kerouac Project in Orlando, Florida.</div>
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<br />David W. Bernerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01032217219609798142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-582457967959829033.post-54305517662639572062018-05-23T15:20:00.001-07:002018-05-23T15:20:21.597-07:00When the Light Shines: Hemingway Shorts <div style="text-align: justify;">
Writing is communal, despite what they say about it being a lonely art. Yes, you can keep a personal journal and you can write in a secret diary, and these can be wonderful things. But being a writer is about getting your work read. Putting your work out there to share with the world. This is what art is about, the communal emotions born from the human condition. Painters need eyes. Writers need readers.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm5jr27edMG7PmA_QTyxbhNZvPIamAbZ45ujiCSVADVWxrVJ395Qp7RYDTUZa0KBiyRJzzAsgiaH7r3I-xDiHpMKsnL8MGOqixFYopmFXARMDDpCJIRrEOp3e9e9DJIigATnm5bdzHRGc/s1600/2018%252BHemingwayShortsCover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="717" data-original-width="501" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm5jr27edMG7PmA_QTyxbhNZvPIamAbZ45ujiCSVADVWxrVJ395Qp7RYDTUZa0KBiyRJzzAsgiaH7r3I-xDiHpMKsnL8MGOqixFYopmFXARMDDpCJIRrEOp3e9e9DJIigATnm5bdzHRGc/s320/2018%252BHemingwayShortsCover.jpg" width="223" /></a></div>
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So, when the <a href="http://www.ehfop.org/" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park</span></a> called for submissions <gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="d6af62fb-f600-4a66-983a-634d5830e8cb" id="3594108c-5766-444f-8e74-e7e150530ba5">to</gs> its annual <a href="https://www.hemingwaybirthplace.com/hemingway-shorts/" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;"><i>Hemingway Shorts</i></span></a> publication, that is what we had in mind. Writers sharing. And that's what we got. Some 200 submissions were taken. And at the end of a long, tedious, sometimes difficult process, eleven pieces were chosen for publication. One, and only one, was the winner, a beautiful story by <b>Veryan Williams-Wynn</b> entitled <i style="font-weight: bold;">The Empty Chair. </i><gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="d9ba0ec0-5cdf-4a46-a768-688f0c78eb26" id="8df3667d-6aef-4784-95b6-be7dfbf24c19">Veryan</gs> is from Devon, England and she signifies the great reach of our submissions. </div>
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She, like so many others, shared the work. And we thank you for the courage, for it certainly takes courage to offer your work to the world, shining a light on wonderful stories. </div>
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Congratulations. </div>
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The <i>Hemingway Shorts,</i> Volume 3 is available <a href="https://www.hemingwaybirthplace.com/hemingway-shorts/" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">HERE</span></a>.</div>
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Those who were chosen for publication are listed below:</div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><b><gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="bbf138f3-4f74-4974-819c-2da78912c1d7" id="35eb89b5-6bec-4b59-8b4f-987be075a194">Runner-Up</gs>:</b><span> </span><i><b>Everything That’s Something Must Come From Chicago</b></i><i style="font-weight: 400;"><span> </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">by Jennifer Sears </span></span><u></u></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><b>Finalists: </b>(in no particular order)</span></div>
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<b><gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="9d9c84c5-06a8-4f00-b2a3-bbb107a6cd1d" id="d742d3fa-15f3-4635-809c-0d300cfc74b3">Bairro</gs><i> Portugues </i></b>by Sharon Willdin </div>
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<i><b>Last To Leave</b> </i>by Lisa Ferranti </div>
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<i><b>The Most Wonderful Time of the Year</b> </i>by <span style="color: #333333; font-family: proxima-nova; font-size: 15px;">Genevieve K. Waller</span></div>
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<i><b>The Crossing Guard</b> </i>by Floyd <gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="47835930-8b05-4dd6-a869-fbd45b412baa" id="8ee66027-6045-448d-9eac-0178433b8093">Sullivan <i><b>T</b></i></gs><i><b></b></i></div>
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<i><b>The Canalways of Kerala</b> </i><span style="font-style: normal;">by David Alan Peizer </span></div>
</i><span style="color: #222222;"><div style="text-align: justify;">
<b><gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="0b7fb2eb-4c0b-48a1-82a1-3e102fba595e" id="065f5a71-26af-4085-88b1-7cc1e85d03be">Analisa’s</gs></b><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><i><b> Letter</b> </i>by Dottie Sines </div>
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<i><b>Intention</b> </i>by Melanie Haney </div>
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<i><b>Bomb Threat</b> </i>by Gregory Joseph Imhoff </div>
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<i><b>Chardonnay</b> </i><span style="font-style: normal;">by Rob Vogt</span></div>
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David W. Bernerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01032217219609798142noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-582457967959829033.post-22167556361439602112018-05-09T17:48:00.002-07:002018-05-09T18:17:26.107-07:00Review: The Vines We Planted<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">I
always thought it would be fun to pair wine with a great work of literature— a
robust cabernet when reading Hemingway’s <i>The Sun Also Rises</i>, a
peppery <gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="279496eb-e681-4510-9e5d-1b467aaa0018" id="71abacb5-1c17-4527-8261-a70069d47e0a">tempranillo</gs> with <i>Don Quixote,</i> or a
buttery <gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="279496eb-e681-4510-9e5d-1b467aaa0018" id="867812af-fa6f-440d-b08f-b1a2a2bf8ef6">chardonnay</gs> with <i>Madame Bovary</i>. Certainly one
should be sipping on a <gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="989deb0f-5727-4c2d-a5ac-b0dea9b1b3f8" id="1e38343a-6a37-4321-9bc9-8a4980d97eac">pinot</gs> noir when gulping through the pages of
the hit novel <i>Sideways</i>, the book about of two friends who head out
for one last trip to wine country before one of them marries. </span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";"></span>
<br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkXnZdBhhZ9ywjBrg3hRUdb1SrzKMQhOZ7mDGlYRvjHgtEBjCbY2HX2geZVFlnpNcRa37gFV6vZrYw-5oP-i_3bJhMl0ebUTmWc2plCPC8cUQEAeUsjPu5K8BWZWsRnzpsDVWlWxwLBGs/s1600/IMG_2716-300x225.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="300" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkXnZdBhhZ9ywjBrg3hRUdb1SrzKMQhOZ7mDGlYRvjHgtEBjCbY2HX2geZVFlnpNcRa37gFV6vZrYw-5oP-i_3bJhMl0ebUTmWc2plCPC8cUQEAeUsjPu5K8BWZWsRnzpsDVWlWxwLBGs/s320/IMG_2716-300x225.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">I consider this
again after reading the new novel </span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Vines-We-Planted-Joanell-Serra/dp/1947966022" style="font-family: "times new roman";"><i><span style="color: blue;">The Vines We Planted</span></i><span style="color: blue;"> </span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">by
Joanell Serra, a complex family saga touching on a number of themes—loss,
redemption, forgiveness, marriage, immigration, love, adoption, mystery, and
yes, wine. Plenty of wine. Like an old vine wine, the story has deep roots,
taking place in California’s wine country where generations have tended to a
family vineyard. But where family also means complicated realities, secrets,
heartbreak, and courage to face tough truths about mysterious relationships.</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";"><br /></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">Along with wine, there are
also horses. And I don’t say this flippantly. Some of the most beautiful
passages in this story center around the Macon family’s young widower, Uriel
and his love of horses, the peace and comfort he receives from caring for them.
In the first pages of the book, Serra writes, </span><span style="color: #3a3a3a; font-family: "times new roman";">“</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">Uriel understood how to coax
an angry stallion back to his stall, when to let a horse run hard, and when to
rein it in. He knew never to turn his back on a horse or put himself in the
path of its temper.” These words come to define much more than the character’s
relationship with horses.</span></div>
</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">Serra weaves a number of
storylines into a larger narrative about how we face our challenges and learn
to overcome them. Sometimes taking in all the themes makes for a dense read,
but when is family not complicated? The layers of any family run long and
deep. <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Vines-We-Planted-Joanell-Serra/dp/1947966022"><span style="color: blue;">The Vines We Planted</span></a></i> captures that
reality. </span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZkuj8ySFokbvXj3MNu2BHJ558cr8mwFQVlvGptLs4xqzEOA9vPkU_xMd7uj50Nq30BDOxCx_pK_FUydeSmnZqTC4mpCnWwHM-RUhSF4JUDsQDU-tBrWfbZUQXyqxbMtBF2zs4Q_QDkqo/s1600/VinesWePlanted_CVR_MED-683x1024-200x300.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZkuj8ySFokbvXj3MNu2BHJ558cr8mwFQVlvGptLs4xqzEOA9vPkU_xMd7uj50Nq30BDOxCx_pK_FUydeSmnZqTC4mpCnWwHM-RUhSF4JUDsQDU-tBrWfbZUQXyqxbMtBF2zs4Q_QDkqo/s1600/VinesWePlanted_CVR_MED-683x1024-200x300.jpg" /></a></span></div>
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">So, what wine should one be
drinking when reading <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Vines-We-Planted-Joanell-Serra/dp/1947966022"><i><span style="color: blue;">The Vines We Planted</span></i><span style="color: blue;">?</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
</div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">Rosé.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">The wine has an array of
flavor profiles—grapefruit, raspberry, peach, to name a few. And the range of
colors includes mango, cantaloupe, and melon, among others. The assortment of
possibilities with rosé is like the scope of storylines in <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Vines-We-Planted-Joanell-Serra/dp/1947966022"><span style="color: blue;">The Vines We Planted</span></a></i>—complex, but highly
drinkable, a book, like the wine, that one can savor. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";"></span>Photos: <a href="http://www.joanellserraauthor.com/">www.joanellserraauthor.com</a><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="color: blue;">THE VINES WE PLANTED, by Joanell Serra</span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="background: white; color: blue; font-family: "times new roman";">Wi<gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="4c9b9c65-5157-4544-9e7b-5448d1f8fd71" id="2f552853-89ea-490d-8ccc-68918f17658d">Do
P</gs>ublishing (May 8, 2018)</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
David W. Bernerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01032217219609798142noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-582457967959829033.post-46829564690304042722018-04-27T09:13:00.000-07:002018-04-27T09:13:19.097-07:00The Muse of MusicI recently read a piece at <a href="https://lithub.com/" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;"><gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="7cf69ceb-8e13-481d-a9d7-a90b65cc5baa" id="be323f0d-5e43-45a5-a14b-00fed6b86f57">Literary Hub</gs></span></a> about the influence Van Morrison's album <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-miracle-of-van-morrisons-astral-weeks"><span style="color: blue;"><i>Astral Weeks</i> </span></a>has had on writers. It's a tremendous record. Morrison's best, in my opinion. <gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="ea00245d-1cda-47fd-bcdd-429044f1cf31" id="cc23ac40-5275-4da6-a0cc-ae6eff420458">Songs</gs> on that album make me cry, make me think. The classic from 1968 is hard to pin down, however. It's an album with a lot of themes running through it. But all together, it's a masterpiece.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipwv_EkCAaxGxwMqzo5rkjiuS25Ojsir4kEp_ad3TgBnh2CIA-A1ehReY-w78fE5wDkdM20saQa_gu7WTGJLtUk349dkT4lFfyXmpFIAj4H8saGVR-imXw-iZ7tkGv8wE3v_t_2YhGSSQ/s1600/astral+weeks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="1500" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipwv_EkCAaxGxwMqzo5rkjiuS25Ojsir4kEp_ad3TgBnh2CIA-A1ehReY-w78fE5wDkdM20saQa_gu7WTGJLtUk349dkT4lFfyXmpFIAj4H8saGVR-imXw-iZ7tkGv8wE3v_t_2YhGSSQ/s200/astral+weeks.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<br />
Certainly music plays a part in writing. Writers will often name great songwriters as inspiration. Dylan, for one. Even before the Nobel Prize for Literature. Springsteen, John Lennon, Joni Mitchell, Kurt Cobain—to name just a few. Jason Isbell is a tremendous lyricist. Listening to the music of Iron and Wine is guaranteed to trigger a bout of writing. But there are also the songs <i>without </i>lyrics that can spark creativity.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE-TI9m29dRyLdylcc8Y1CMTHdnv_npKYcuRgIMmeOpP73ZlMzELcgZhJdK1dOt8tm9Zml9Y8A94x8waPlI7uVa8LGL7JmAhTyX9z7J9tz_0Ebh6-B5i7miCaB6-6HvWmtzLX-zUZvY14/s1600/dylan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="439" data-original-width="782" height="176" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE-TI9m29dRyLdylcc8Y1CMTHdnv_npKYcuRgIMmeOpP73ZlMzELcgZhJdK1dOt8tm9Zml9Y8A94x8waPlI7uVa8LGL7JmAhTyX9z7J9tz_0Ebh6-B5i7miCaB6-6HvWmtzLX-zUZvY14/s320/dylan.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
It may be a bit of a cliche, but Mile Davis' <i><a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/500-greatest-albums-of-all-time-20120531/miles-davis-kind-of-blue-20120524" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">Kind of Blue</span></a></i> has always been magic for me. It has for others, too. The album is over 50 years old and it still sinks into my soul every single time I play it. There is something new to hear; something new that resonates. It's cool, melodic, romantic, and </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="8fd76368-55b3-4465-947e-6d7cf928f66b" id="51ba0125-c181-4959-8a36-ba5825c86481">revolutionary</gs>. Any one of those emotions could fit the bill. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmq0SsYNL6rlEWS0YEvKjm1p0NJeBHMs3R5-uPXQBK8XAt_ROIbZcUwLZE82ik9QnKAw4YkIMjWRibkf_drw-Ctgr2DL8JAa3oeEfBTPg1DjbcYq2mV7uiGe_UYXASRtpRR0lkCHOP-zE/s1600/milesdavis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="1500" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmq0SsYNL6rlEWS0YEvKjm1p0NJeBHMs3R5-uPXQBK8XAt_ROIbZcUwLZE82ik9QnKAw4YkIMjWRibkf_drw-Ctgr2DL8JAa3oeEfBTPg1DjbcYq2mV7uiGe_UYXASRtpRR0lkCHOP-zE/s200/milesdavis.jpg" width="200" /></a> Other Music without lyrics known to do the trick: Beethoven, Mozart, Debussy, and even meditative music like Indian flute.</div>
<br />
Writers use music to get in the mood to write, but others have been known to create a "soundtrack" for their work, a song list that helps to maintain a theme or a mood. I read in a <a href="https://thewritelife.com/music-to-listen-to-while-writing/"><span style="color: blue;">Write Life</span></a> post that writer Chandi Gilbert was developing a personal essay that centered around her early teenage years, so she created a musical list of songs from the year 1994 to help put her in the right frame of mind.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYsdVp6dXop8e0edFzcvKH-O-To_yQ7PJuafXgewjEtYqk1U4y-N0ubbcD_7m4l4IjDXgiCSa3CfP4j793iZkSzpG6C9QQZzKuWwqTxqcM5yL_YQKRBNWPU4-QqjUAjckpw7nKtvUhkbQ/s1600/30289895.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="307" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYsdVp6dXop8e0edFzcvKH-O-To_yQ7PJuafXgewjEtYqk1U4y-N0ubbcD_7m4l4IjDXgiCSa3CfP4j793iZkSzpG6C9QQZzKuWwqTxqcM5yL_YQKRBNWPU4-QqjUAjckpw7nKtvUhkbQ/s320/30289895.jpg" width="205" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
My novel,<i><span style="color: blue;"> <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Night-Radio-David-W-Berner/dp/1682640094" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">Night Radio</span></a></span></i>, actually prompted a musical playlist. The story revolves around a period of time when radio had strong musical relevance, and so I created a <a href="https://www.spotify.com/us/" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">Spotify</span></a> playlist for the novel. It was fun and it helped promote the book.<br />
<br />
How does music relate to your writing? Do you play it when you write? Do you use it to create mood? When you hear a certain song, does it inspire you to sit down at the keyboard?<br />
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S<gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="9b25f983-c6a1-40c0-a2ea-c089f378d1a6" id="8b7a7a25-19ea-4211-9922-daf0852a634d">h</gs><gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="9b25f983-c6a1-40c0-a2ea-c089f378d1a6" id="1cc01b46-e38c-42cc-ac16-f33db18ca2cc">are</gs> your thoughts on how music connects to your writing, because. . <gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="af8bcb13-4f18-4d36-a08c-63259636e82b" id="99725db4-b1a4-4ef9-a827-b94268fe6d84">.</gs><gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="af8bcb13-4f18-4d36-a08c-63259636e82b" id="65b5d940-22ce-495b-ab68-a152601632aa">you</gs> know it does.<br />
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<br />David W. Bernerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01032217219609798142noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-582457967959829033.post-55720113143000685222018-04-09T11:12:00.000-07:002018-04-09T14:39:17.564-07:00A Community of Writers <div style="text-align: justify;">
I'm writing a new series of essays called <a href="https://channillo.com/series/walks-with-sam/"><span style="color: blue;"><gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="8b9cec44-5668-4403-a898-d788cff803ee" id="8832b44d-8d34-424d-9da3-eb19ab695cd2"><gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="7b37991e-39aa-474f-a059-9edcdf860f47" id="980710ae-8e2f-4974-b4df-5f03b0038fcc">Walks</gs></gs> With Sam</span></a>, and this post is how you can be involved either directly or indirectly as a reader and/or a writer, how reading the series can benefit pets, and how writing on a subscription-based site can help you as a writer and the charity of your choice. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaCEkcFsMca6laYeCRKRY0UvIbFyQtj4WW6OLtMM8X8Y3H2rp6F29A6-nTSdgcEDluwGxHoVXilJyiE__wGs2_sM8RgX942m0j4UDv3TdvdmRbHyh3JbgTEDAOWNQiCXaPciHCszWe_Jk/s1600/coverpic-2005.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="460" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaCEkcFsMca6laYeCRKRY0UvIbFyQtj4WW6OLtMM8X8Y3H2rp6F29A6-nTSdgcEDluwGxHoVXilJyiE__wGs2_sM8RgX942m0j4UDv3TdvdmRbHyh3JbgTEDAOWNQiCXaPciHCszWe_Jk/s320/coverpic-2005.jpeg" width="229" /></a></div>
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If you follow me at all, you know I am not a fan of the plethora of writing "tips" found all over the Internet. Much of what is there is <gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="f4ec73e3-ed2a-4330-87cd-1767acd77a5a" id="2ce9ff3c-6876-4525-a7aa-87724824b6b2"></gs><gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="f4ec73e3-ed2a-4330-87cd-1767acd77a5a" id="2ce9ff3c-6876-4525-a7aa-87724824b6b2"></gs><gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="f4ec73e3-ed2a-4330-87cd-1767acd77a5a" id="2ce9ff3c-6876-4525-a7aa-87724824b6b2"><gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="3e331e17-f8d1-4b87-b6c6-f2d9a72182bc" id="932a1584-1304-4c0b-a58e-b2667c625e8f"><gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="9168ec29-a5b8-4c40-80e9-684ef46e5e39" id="d9bf0068-b62f-4fd0-9f11-888ad2119f13"><gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="63b19e6a-94d0-45f8-88da-8c9cb0c752ff" id="194d0a77-f4d2-4a36-a0c9-5d18caea68d6">clickbait</gs></gs></gs></gs>, and although there are some slivers of good advice, a lot of it leads to formula writing. Think of it this way: There are a lot of good pasta sauce recipes from all our Italian grandmothers, and there are certain things that make all sauces savory, but not every sauce is the same, each <gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="912fe6e6-22e1-4cef-908e-f90690c4c668" id="ac4aadfd-3f3c-4b2a-8470-dcb950708b8a">is made</gs> a different way, each has unique and varied ingredients, each is cooked in a unique way. And in the end, you may not like every sauce, but it's still pasta sauce. All of it. </div>
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I'm a big proponent of simply getting after the work. If you want to be a good golfer—go play. If you want to be a good painter—paint. Writers should write, not belabor over tips and advice. It's okay to make mistakes, whatever they are. Mistakes are simply steps along the way, right? The idea is to get to the work. Yes, you need a framework of skills, you need support, you need to read the work of good writers. But there is only one way to be a writer and that's to write.</div>
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I have found a wonderful site that keeps you engaged in your writing. It helps you maintain deadlines and supports your work, and best of all, it gets your work out there for others to read and share. Writing should be shared. Personal journals are great. But art—painting, sculpture, music, theater, writing—should be offered to the world.</div>
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A friend turned me on to <span style="color: blue;"><a href="https://channillo.com/"><span style="color: blue;">Channillo</span>.</a></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFfNu_wuWvqyvBjznURPXwRyhS_ld_UvMUvV5S13u6nbJ2q_LqFLb3xZFwPRRO1MNEjCcdhtDAbz6B44g1bFTtxV9cgyJL_eLc0X18obe941FNXpKkAyUCNiXiseFbihTXOjLjxzeSvcI/s1600/Channillo-Logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="280" data-original-width="580" height="95" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFfNu_wuWvqyvBjznURPXwRyhS_ld_UvMUvV5S13u6nbJ2q_LqFLb3xZFwPRRO1MNEjCcdhtDAbz6B44g1bFTtxV9cgyJL_eLc0X18obe941FNXpKkAyUCNiXiseFbihTXOjLjxzeSvcI/s200/Channillo-Logo.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="text-align: center;">The site is a community of writers on a digital publishing platform that allows authors to share their work in regular installments. The "regular" part is crucial. As a writer, it forces you to stay on a deadline, to populate your "series" regularly, to write, to create. As you certainly know, inspiration alone does not make you write. If we all waited for inspiration, we would all be still waiting. Writing is a job. Go to work.</span><span style="color: blue; text-align: center;"> </span><span style="color: blue; text-align: center;"></span><span style="color: blue; text-align: center;"></span><span style="color: blue; text-align: center;"></span><span style="color: blue; text-align: center;"><a href="https://channillo.com/"><span style="color: blue;"><gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="104e86ca-d0b9-4411-97b8-e0d98f659510" id="c30a17ed-bf9c-4c0c-9e85-586597d12e2f"><gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="1127d79b-2e31-4a5b-b539-6378e7100d0b" id="bb42ef92-864f-480a-8b6d-377ac7b849b5"><gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="fc6b3386-562d-4b29-b36b-f6921970801e" id="22b1587f-95fb-45e0-b3d1-f1345d24f678">Channillo</gs></gs></gs></span></a> </span><span style="text-align: center;">helps you do that by keeping you "responsible" for populating your series. Yes, submit to other opportunities—journals or lit magazines. But Channillo, due to its commitment component, keeps you writing no matter what. </span></div>
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And if you are not ready to write, then <gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="12884747-960e-4ff3-92de-cd5fbd386bf5" id="d1b50dab-5a70-4a3e-8b56-fbdfbdaeead5">read at <span style="color: blue;"><a href="https://channillo.com/"><span style="color: blue;">Channillo</span></a>.</span> </gs></div>
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There are wonderful stories of all kinds, styles, and themes. Poems and prose. You can follow a novel's progression, or read regular columns, or essays. </div>
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<a href="https://channillo.com/"><span style="color: blue;"><gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="45384181-4853-4267-bc82-f28475b9bb88" id="6644f3bb-8aa1-4b43-9611-7ba9d29f14b6">Channillo</gs></span></a> is somewhat discerning. You can apply to write a series, but only a limited number of writers are accepted each month. That's a good thing. It keeps the quality high and it encourages those who are not quite ready as writers to keep at it, to work at their craft. I was contacted by the founder of Channillo, Kara Klotz, through Twitter to consider writing. I'm so happy she reached out.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMJZT_FDInGcl6zTFkIuqCUelaNmIoSyRp26Q3GrqQ0PVTd_-UremZUIVCpmOjWVPlz6JogUAa5eX8fumAfsF_1i228zCsYQoBJaRchr2iD5VhUvC6Zj0lVGbaOQh1M7YObsxFV0s5y7U/s1600/coverpic-2005.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="460" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMJZT_FDInGcl6zTFkIuqCUelaNmIoSyRp26Q3GrqQ0PVTd_-UremZUIVCpmOjWVPlz6JogUAa5eX8fumAfsF_1i228zCsYQoBJaRchr2iD5VhUvC6Zj0lVGbaOQh1M7YObsxFV0s5y7U/s320/coverpic-2005.jpeg" width="229" /></a><br />
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I write a weekly series entitled <a href="https://channillo.com/series/walks-with-sam/"><span style="color: blue;">Walks with Sam</span></a>. I had written a 60,00 word novel about a man who walks this dog every morning after facing a number of <gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="f17a22a9-d273-4218-843c-6eb1ef3cb488" id="7e27d236-ec40-4b97-aa10-c4d063f35e2e"><gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="5bb1867c-c4d6-4e62-ac3b-7c62cc1580bd" id="bdfae12c-3a0d-4848-ab97-fa5954c424d5">life</gs></gs> setbacks and begins to rediscover the world through those walks. But after finishing the first draft, I wasn't satisfied. I thought maybe the <a href="https://channillo.com/series/walks-with-sam/"><span style="color: blue;">Walks with Sam</span></a> concept needed something different. Maybe it needed to be real. Nonfiction. Essays. Memoir. So, to keep me focused on this new approach and to see what kind of reaction I might get from these weekly installments, I found a home for the walking stories on Channillo. The jury is still out on what will come of the series, how the series will progress, and if it's worth more. But no matter what, there it is. For me to work on and for you to read. I'm sharing not only my work, but my writer's journey. </div>
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And that is the beauty of <a href="https://channillo.com/"><span style="color: blue;">Channillo. </span></a></div>
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There is one more thing, although it is not the main reason to use Channillo. Writers get paid. This is a subscription-based site for readers. But I would suggest setting up your work to be a non-profit. This allows you to use the proceeds for charity. It might be a bit easier to get people to sign up for a subscription if they know the money is going to a charity. I have signed up to donate all of my profits from <a href="https://channillo.com/series/walks-with-sam/"><span style="color: blue;">Walks with Sam</span></a> to <a href="http://www.pawschicago.org/"><span style="color: blue;">PAWS Chicago</span></a>, which works to build no-kill communities that respect and value the lives of <gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="72ca63b1-0efa-4aa5-9abd-362dc62b7a22" id="ce06d031-aa80-4014-a5fa-e8c6f78b6a62">cats</gs> and dogs. </div>
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Take a look at<span style="color: blue;"> <a href="https://channillo.com/"><span style="color: blue;">Channillo</span></a></span>. Sign up. Read the stories. Write for them. </div>
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One last thing...</div>
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Here are a few reasonable recent stories about writers working on Chanillo that will give you a well-rounded idea of its benefits and scope. </div>
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Keep writing! </div>
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Links:</div>
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<a href="https://medium.com/@leighshulman/should-you-serialize-your-work-on-chanillo-f156a488b454" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">Medium</span></a></div>
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<a href="https://kellfrillman.wordpress.com/2015/04/14/dailyblog-channillo/" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;"><gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="ae22a71d-5794-4d5b-b4d7-a508162db324" id="58395d7e-01b5-47bb-a926-5777d9237c67"><gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="220235e0-612e-447b-b5ee-78bd0b5413f1" id="0ef930e7-d31b-4d96-bf22-24f41b3ae5dd">Kell</gs></gs> Frillman</span></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.curtisbaussebooks.com/2016/01/19/channillo-so-far/" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;"><gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="34f34366-4bbe-452a-970a-07993d73a9d5" id="0587e53c-2b27-4cf7-8164-232016a3a6eb">Curt</gs>is Bausse Books</span></a></div>
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<br />David W. Bernerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01032217219609798142noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-582457967959829033.post-62475559557249703672018-03-25T09:58:00.001-07:002018-03-25T10:06:49.564-07:00What the Hell Do I Know? Thoughts on Writing<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwlFbHa4uSLKxU2d6vkWjsZhCMCtNXeQxRIOYsVwdR6eRoCsySb1X0Pcs92iozwS-DC3RfoxFo9-ga7QZjusovztbgoI5Xfk4OKs_fvznMyUNPK1MqP0Q1Ygvt-edzCbVT9OsGp4GOuSU/s1600/jepp.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="333" data-original-width="500" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwlFbHa4uSLKxU2d6vkWjsZhCMCtNXeQxRIOYsVwdR6eRoCsySb1X0Pcs92iozwS-DC3RfoxFo9-ga7QZjusovztbgoI5Xfk4OKs_fvznMyUNPK1MqP0Q1Ygvt-edzCbVT9OsGp4GOuSU/s320/jepp.png" width="320" /></a></div>
Some thoughts from a long-time storyteller, me.<br />
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It seems every writer with a computer is blogging advice about this or that, and most of it is a lot of blah-blah. (I'm guilty, too.) Honestly, advice is cheap. Yes, some of it comes from wonderful people, great writers, teachers, people who have walked the walk, many who have walked the walk far more successfully than I have. But, I<gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="a805675c-1d2e-4e7a-aa6c-f98948d9e3ed" id="54ba73ca-d14b-41fa-a42d-c36fd827417b"><gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="4c493c49-7255-4f9d-b0b4-e2d72facdc82" id="2b31d67f-2aca-41bc-98c7-0a7c3fdb7fc3">'ve been telling</gs></gs> stories professionally since the mid-1970s, either in print, online, in literary mags, through journalism, in books, or on the radio. And believe me, my long radio career has helped me be a better writer. "Telling stories" is far different than "writing" them, but telling stories on the radio is a key ingredient of my storytelling life. One has assisted the other.</div>
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<span style="text-align: center;">So, with this background, some thoughts you can take or leave from this storyteller...</span></div>
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<b>Write Each Day</b></div>
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Something. Anything. And be dedicated to it. Own it. Write it for you, but, even better, write for others to experience. Writing is a gift to others. The cliche of the lonely writer sitting with his own thoughts in a quiet corner of the world is a tired, pathetic thing. Writing is meant to be shared. Get it out there on social media, a personal blog, anything. Let it fly! </div>
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<b>Read Out loud</b></div>
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You've heard this before. But it is essential. Whether your work is <gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="2c06f18e-0fa1-4b0e-b078-665bc713bf36" id="09cc68ef-3b56-4e1c-b5c0-8b4a1d7a87bf"><gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="ffa47de3-805e-40f9-bac5-a1469c8be5cb" id="6be0fcb1-ff80-411b-918b-6a22635d9b5c">for</gs></gs> print, online, or for the speaking voice, reading it aloud will give you a sense of its musicality, its weight, its clarity.</div>
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<b>Perform Lit Live</b></div>
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There are dozens of Live Lit groups around the city of Chicago, where I am, and in many other cities everywhere. They are wonderful opportunities to get your writing out there, to see how an audience (your "reader") reacts, how it resonates and connects. And most are open to new voices. Just reach out. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpskERjSThBMC_FTSzee3NrIJ9ymZBcqUEzlIRIvmnMuE6nJMJggx15mN1oSlZLHfU9pnFwAFRBjtdobcu5gQLhECG3wkaVbm02kp6esCJNjJ2Xd6l9aqV_36YGPJEoNP5boJOo3l9BFI/s1600/Motivational-Quotes-for-Writers-and-Bloggers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="350" height="182" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpskERjSThBMC_FTSzee3NrIJ9ymZBcqUEzlIRIvmnMuE6nJMJggx15mN1oSlZLHfU9pnFwAFRBjtdobcu5gQLhECG3wkaVbm02kp6esCJNjJ2Xd6l9aqV_36YGPJEoNP5boJOo3l9BFI/s320/Motivational-Quotes-for-Writers-and-Bloggers.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b>Be Careful with Self-Publishing</b></div>
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I'm not here to bash self publishing. My very first book was a hybrid-publisher, which is one step above pure self-publishing. That book won respectable awards. My experience was a good one. But not all self-publishing experiences are. There are some awful publishing companies out there preying on writers. Be cautious. Do your homework. Hire an experienced editor and book designer. Hire a publicist. And be ready for bookstores to reject your book, simply because it's self published. All this said, self-publishing can be the right way to go if you are diligent and prepared for its realities and what comes with it. </div>
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<b>Don't Self-Publish</b></div>
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I know, I just suggested self-publishing might be right for you, depending on your goal. For instance, genre fiction does better through self publishing than literary fiction or memoir. So, before deciding to go that route, give your work a real shot with small presses and attempt to find an agent. Take your time and do your research. If you can get a traditional publisher, it's almost always going to be better for you. There will be more chances to get your book in bookstores and the like. I had an agent once. Dropped her. She was good. But I found I was making better inroads on my own, at least with small presses. If you're really going after the Big Five publishers, you will <i>need</i> an agent. Still, you<i> can </i>get published, legitimately, without one. This said, a great agent is just that, great, and along with a good writer, one can create a dynamic duo. </div>
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<b>Get Used to Rejection</b></div>
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You hear this all the time, but it needs to be repeated. It's part of the gig. I have been rejected over and over. Many times, it doesn't necessarily have to do with your writing or your story. Many times, it's a marketing dilemma. Is your story too much like a book the publisher already released? Is the subject matter too risky? I had one acquisitions editor tell me that no one in this business will admit that much of the decision-making process is purely subjective. Yes, the writing is important. You have to be a good writer. So, keep writing, and keep submitting. </div>
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<b>Take All Criticism with a BIG Grain of Salt</b></div>
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Not everyone is going to like your writing, your stories. They just aren't. This goes for other writers and readers of all kinds. Refer to the above about rejection and how so much is simply subjective. Still, one can learn from criticism. Yes, it can help you improve, just don't let it define you. Not all criticism is valid. </div>
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<b>Don't Dismiss Amazon</b></div>
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Too many authors badmouth Amazon. But the reality is Amazon is here and will remain and they sell a lot of books. This is not to dismiss supporting your local bookstore. Certainly not. But Amazon is a reality and, I contend, there is a place in the market for both. Be loyal to your bookstore. But if <gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="bab11ae9-7588-41de-858d-945695629d2e" id="8f900dfe-bb6b-41df-8d70-e06f4c83ea70">you are </gs>trying to sell books, you simply cannot completely dismiss Amazon. </div>
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<b>Read, For Goodness Sake </b></div>
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This should be a no-brainer. You <i>must </i>read if you are going to write for print, online, radio, or TV. Reading is absolutely essential. And stretch yourself. Read the classics and read the comics. There is no good writer who is not a voracious reader. </div>
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<b>And Lastly, Forget This Advice</b></div>
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Advice is not always good advice. It's just advice. It's only someone's experience. And yes, what I have done well or not-do-well can be valuable knowledge for others, but still, it may not be what is best for you. Make your goal, aim high, and gather knowledge, but do not take what I say or write, or what someone else says or writes, as gospel. It's not.<br />
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<b>One More Thing</b><br />
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Consider stopping when you want to improve. Don't over edit. Sometimes the fourth draft doesn't need the fifth. As Leonardo <gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="e5dbbd59-9958-4043-b5c0-53c299d9f54a" id="4688cd98-b7d2-409c-9407-67528006ced2">da</gs> Vinci said, "Art is never finished, only abandoned."</div>
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<b>Oh, One, ONE More Thing</b></div>
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Take risks. Writing is art. Art is risky. Putting yourself or your stories out there is courageous. Take the leap. It is worth it.<b> </b></div>
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David W. Bernerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01032217219609798142noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-582457967959829033.post-1938378109647464422018-03-05T09:34:00.001-08:002018-03-05T14:26:08.587-08:00The Generous Writer <div style="text-align: justify;">
I was listening the other day to one of my favorite radio shows, <i><a href="http://www.soundopinions.org/" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">Sound Opinions</span></a></i>, with Greg Kot and Jim DeRogatis. In this episode, they were interviewing music producer, Don Was, who has worked with Bonnie Raitt, Bob Dylan, and The Rolling Stones. Was talked about working with what he called "generous" musicians, musicians who played from the heart, who were not quick to show-off what might be his/her flashy technical prowess. "There were two kinds of music,"Was said. "Generous music and "selfish music." "Selfish" is someone standing up with his guitar playing "a thousand notes a second." Basically, all he is saying was "look at what I can do." It is like "watching an acrobat." He must have "practiced a lot." But this music doesn't "impact your life." One can appreciate the skill. On the other hand, "generous music" comes from people who "spill their guts" and then have the ability and courage to share it with strangers. "Generous music" transcends any style or genre.<br />
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Was was right. But I wonder if he knew he was not only talking about musicians, but writers, too.<br />
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What is a generous writer? </div>
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The generous writer doesn't spend his time trying to craft the acrobatic sentence. That's what a selfish writer does. "Look at what I can do," he says. Certainly nothing wrong with a well-crafted sentence. But what have some of our most revered storytellers said? Hemingway: "Write one true sentence." Kerouac said, "Don't count syllables." When talking about poetry, Kerouac said to keep it "simple and free of poetic trickery." "One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple," he wrote in <i><span style="color: blue;"><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/412732.The_Dharma_Bums" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">The Dharma Bums.</span></a></span></i><br />
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Are you a generous writer?<br />
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Do you keep it simple where you can? Do you believe opening your heart, (in memoir or fiction or personal essay), is more important than being praised for your technically perfect grammar? Are you authentic to your prose? Are you true to your story? You don't make your story sweeter than it is. You don't make it more troubling than it is. Will the reader discover your soul in your writing? Do you reflect a shared humanity? Do you believe in the power of words?<br />
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Do you believe <i>your</i> words have that power?<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP7u5tf9ra1Q_reAO9q-jizKzEaQb00SIeZ7OVzVsZTwqhveM3k_djw5AeIQemY9gp-xuAd62GSBMiN6CchY8o1zg7eCRgXTHRkqlUC4VPEs5XVlZWMv5dBl7ih3pNAMXcxYqYI3as230/s1600/1heart.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="183" data-original-width="276" height="132" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP7u5tf9ra1Q_reAO9q-jizKzEaQb00SIeZ7OVzVsZTwqhveM3k_djw5AeIQemY9gp-xuAd62GSBMiN6CchY8o1zg7eCRgXTHRkqlUC4VPEs5XVlZWMv5dBl7ih3pNAMXcxYqYI3as230/s200/1heart.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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Generosity comes in many ways, and being a generous artist comes in different forms. But the spirit of generosity comes from one thing—something deep inside. William Wordsworth wrote in his poem, <i><a href="https://www.bachelorandmaster.com/britishandamericanpoetry/the-prelude.html#.Wp3D5xPwbNw" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">The Prelude</span></a></i>: "Fill your paper with the breathings of the heart." I'm not sure there is any better piece of advice. </div>
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<br />David W. Bernerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01032217219609798142noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-582457967959829033.post-49939828247474608012018-02-20T11:06:00.001-08:002018-02-20T11:07:49.810-08:00Walks With Sam<div style="text-align: justify;">
I took a long walk the other day. Before the snow melted, before it was washed away by warmer weather and rain. My dog, Sam, and I set out for a winter hike. It was a couple of miles long, long enough to re-balance. The beauty of a long walk is just that, a matter of re-balance.<br />
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I'm also working on a new novel, a work-in-progress, based on a man who tries to re-balance his life through daily walks with his dog. The people he meets, the intersection of thought and movement of feet, the aloneness, the surge of <gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="c2e73400-9303-4a2b-ac7a-a4da798b6ae6" id="33865b89-e11b-410e-bc85-f383c589f0e5"><gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="9b421cfc-0c32-4aaa-9a0a-f408ac81b48c" id="8913de0e-b4ee-47b9-8076-59652a2e5fec">endorphins</gs></gs> all play a part in his redemption. But so does the dog, the dog's intuition and the power of unfaltering love. </div>
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The morning was gray, but the snow gave it light. There were tracks everywhere. People tracks, dog tracks, tracks I did not recognize. Little feet had scampered to or from something in the hours before dawn. </div>
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In the park about a mile from home, the village had fenced off a hill to give children a safe place to sled. The snow was packed and icy. But there was plenty of evidence that it had been put to good use.<br />
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I wore my knee high rubber boots, a poor man's Wellingtons or Wellies, as they are affectionately called. It was damp, slushy, and muddy in places. The boots allowed me to walk with Sam in the park's most water-swollen spots. I unhooked <gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="060b1dfb-cb6c-4aa3-ab92-2db03afa00fb" id="1687fd3f-5aab-4a1f-b77c-b573c2b8ce7c"><gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="7f3cc968-ac48-4299-8eec-f93f792cee65" id="46197ffd-5813-4532-9522-4e528507d209">Sam's leash</gs></gs> and let her run and romp. She made circles around me and around the icy pond. She ate snow. It was not easy to get her back on the leash. No dog wants to be tethered. </div>
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It was early enough that few people were outside. Not even the early, dedicated joggers or the reliable dog walkers. Just me. Just Sam. And we liked it that way. There was solace in the silence, a quiet the snow had helped to recreate. And I could think. Consider the place where I walked, and allow my mind to wander, to reconnect with the world. Not the world of the daily news, the Trump chatter, or how spring training was progressing. But the natural world, the world out in the open.<br />
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As I write this, Sam is stretched out at my feet on the hardwood floor. She does not know that we are heading out again this morning. She does not know that I will again slip on my "Wellies" and tramp my way around the neighborhood in the light rain that falls this morning. She does not know that I just might let her off the leash again, to jump and splash in the mud and the puddles. She doesn't know that we are again about to re-balance in the world outside, in the grayness of a February morning, but also in the light of a new day. </div>
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<br />David W. Bernerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01032217219609798142noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-582457967959829033.post-36460975306599205332018-02-12T11:32:00.002-08:002018-02-21T12:38:04.513-08:00Learning to Write <div style="text-align: justify;">
I'm a teacher, a journalist, a broadcaster, and an author. I am not just <i>one</i> of these things, I am all of them. I'm also a guitarist who occasionally writes songs. I am a father, a husband, and a friend. I try to be as good as one can hope to be at all of them. There are occasions I fail. Sometimes fail miserably. I'm not perfect. But I do know this. I have learned much along the way. And I am better, I believe, at every one of these parts of me—these aspects of myself—than I was the day before. It's a matter of incremental steps.<br />
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I could write much about this notion of growth when it comes to fatherhood or being a good marriage partner, I'm certain of this. That's probably a different blog post or better left for the therapist's office. So, what I want to write about instead is writing and growing as a writer. </div>
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I have published six books. The sixth coming out this April. I have a memoir manuscript being shopped around now that I'm proud of and feel strongly about. It's received some good interest from potential publishers. We'll see where it goes. I'm also working on a new novel—very early stages—and I am determined for it to be the best writing I've done. For certain, I know I write this now NOT because I want to reveal to you all my accomplishments or want you to think how special this guy is, how talented, how wonderful. I write this because I want you, the reader, and all the other writers out there to know, even after all the writing and <gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="beb7ee30-d4fe-411b-871e-6753ad2793cc" id="b7c217dd-571f-46a4-ab43-9aeb47b303de"><gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="8f83e295-9a39-4f75-b7b2-eff6cf3cdcf1" id="4730dadd-15e1-4378-b155-5f29a49e1f42"><gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="8f51784c-4030-421f-8e35-45af253904c1" id="c488dd6a-b05f-4893-ad2e-00e25977241f">work</gs></gs></gs> I've done, and being humbled by all the wonderful writers in Chicago, I still believe I have not yet written my best book.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiBZjuR5CiqV7EA17zXFbw8qMIh6FHCjU6b7OIblw_l98eZQthMOcP-puRyKZwtPIo1I7S9RgIr0nwSw4OdAtX_yeubL4SyZRYwf7dvXz485BNCwQC1_WJyWn3VBjl7JGfwedh_NiEfRU/s1600/are-you-an-author-or-a-writer-whats-the-difference-10-638.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="479" data-original-width="638" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiBZjuR5CiqV7EA17zXFbw8qMIh6FHCjU6b7OIblw_l98eZQthMOcP-puRyKZwtPIo1I7S9RgIr0nwSw4OdAtX_yeubL4SyZRYwf7dvXz485BNCwQC1_WJyWn3VBjl7JGfwedh_NiEfRU/s320/are-you-an-author-or-a-writer-whats-the-difference-10-638.jpg" width="320" /></a>When I go back and re-read my earlier works, I question nearly every word. I read much that I would now change, re-write, massage, tweak. Not because I think it is bad or unworthy, but rather because I am not the same writer I was when I wrote those earlier books. Hopefully, I'm better somehow, have more insight, more skill, and not just technically or as a crafter of words, but more skill as a storyteller with something worthy to share. This said, my desires are not truly about being better, but rather about whether I have grown. Grown in many ways. Grown as a person, a father, a husband and a writer, with all of these "growths" contributing to the writer in me. </div>
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Writers read a lot. I read a lot. Tons. My wife laughs at the number of books that come in the mail. I admire so many writers. Especially some wonderful contemporary writers in Chicago. I could name them, but I would miss <gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="ca83ad1a-8a30-4c1a-bdb1-51e1d173908a" id="87ba2a27-5616-41a8-81cd-3a05b9a13d85"><gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="ecfd3835-9ded-436a-a225-1fe9847d9a9e" id="7fb6e355-e470-4a3a-87de-968506e03850"><gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="d08b5398-e80b-4019-9b22-c51fa2e46010" id="530f2ae7-3c71-4941-a2aa-cad76cafb520">many</gs></gs></gs>, and I don't want to do that. If you follow the literary scene in Chicago, you know their names. And others you may not know, under the radar writers with much to say. They are extremely talented. I read their work and I shudder. Could I ever write that well? But then again, I know that I do write well. I wouldn't still be doing this, have another novel coming out in the spring; I wouldn't have publishers interested in new work or have been humbled and honored by the awards I have won. Not the National Book Award (Seriously?), or the Nobel (LOL), but awards of value and recognition—Chicago Writers Assocaiton Award, honored at the Chicago LIbrary Foundation's Carl Sandburg Literary Awards dinner, the Royal Dragonflly, The Eric Hoffer Prize.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6Cwt-4oXU1hDTsAp8m2_YX6cKhqflmymPOyhOdgFQXOv9Ixk6Ya5Zt29AW4OS0-IQh68jRcIAgsIX-2oOv8TPW6ie1UdoeWDgEBSKIsxl5Q8sJ0NI4N1-3Zn-Je1t1uPvVC0juf-vlAY/s1600/william-gass-alchemist-quote.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="596" data-original-width="850" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6Cwt-4oXU1hDTsAp8m2_YX6cKhqflmymPOyhOdgFQXOv9Ixk6Ya5Zt29AW4OS0-IQh68jRcIAgsIX-2oOv8TPW6ie1UdoeWDgEBSKIsxl5Q8sJ0NI4N1-3Zn-Je1t1uPvVC0juf-vlAY/s320/william-gass-alchemist-quote.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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So why am I writing all this? To pump myself up, as writers often need to do? No. I write this to acknowledge that writing is a journey. It is not about perfection. I write this in the belief that the art of the written word is a moving target. Art in all forms is much the same. Painters change and reinvent themselves and their work. Songwriters do it, too. They grow into new artists with something new to offer. Think of the Beatles. Is the album <i>Revolver</i> better or just different from <i>Abbey Road</i>? And when the surviving members listen to those old records, do they wish they could change a lyric, a harmony, a note, alter the way it was produced? Yes, they do think that sometimes. McCartney has said so much. But their work is what is for the time that it was created, the time along an artist's growth journey, and that's what it should be. </div>
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I will continue to grow. And I hope, continue to find new ways to develop for me and for those who read what I write. And I will move forward and try not to overly critique every word, every theme, or plot—vague or not—and try never to question what I am. For at least in part, I am a writer. </div>
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<br />David W. Bernerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01032217219609798142noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-582457967959829033.post-6196829069576122492018-02-05T10:41:00.001-08:002018-02-05T10:41:36.687-08:00Submit Your Work<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYVEWI9u39b9R-9QcDom5PyOYJP4k1RQOyrsUi-6P0PAVyDngIIIkyQyl5D0YAbTCXGaFrMcfbZc_brNB5xmth_1yyBuNFYfYc1zmPFB-9A74OMzRrGab4pMXRBDkM4yTjlZKOMRaDADU/s1600/salvador-dali.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="676" data-original-width="545" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYVEWI9u39b9R-9QcDom5PyOYJP4k1RQOyrsUi-6P0PAVyDngIIIkyQyl5D0YAbTCXGaFrMcfbZc_brNB5xmth_1yyBuNFYfYc1zmPFB-9A74OMzRrGab4pMXRBDkM4yTjlZKOMRaDADU/s320/salvador-dali.jpg" width="257" /></a></div>
Every single time.<br />
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Students, workshop attendees, friends who want to write all say the same thing: <i>"I have this material, and I think it's pretty good, but it probably isn't, but I don't know, and I'm afraid to send it out, and so it sits in a file on my computer."</i><br />
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Or...<br />
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Other writers, beginning and accomplished, say: <i>"I have some work that might fit for that, but no, it's not good enough, or it needs more work, <gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="2892a9a1-bd5d-4118-af1b-eb3dba1bce23" id="5ad4bdec-d46c-45b3-8078-ae4b789ff5dd"></gs><gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="2892a9a1-bd5d-4118-af1b-eb3dba1bce23" id="5ad4bdec-d46c-45b3-8078-ae4b789ff5dd"><gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="6e59b82f-635e-4ef1-ae10-f1ff6f785187" id="c9412c50-4c43-4ba9-92ff-85d984e3d1bf">or...or...or</gs></gs>..."</i><br />
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Putting your work out there as an artist—any kind of artist—is an act of courage. Beginners and veterans alike struggle with self-doubt, concerns about whether something is perfect, whether it is finished. Here's the truth: <b>It's never perfect and it's never finished. Art never is.</b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGYG1jrg2teHNgmUofTzyqNljz7-kJXkCJnHmt94xvjnQS4LXm2VERrI7TAu9x6-uy3N_P_908PdoIsbjtzyYCMAd9nKRqIXJvz7eWzCFzOw1NIy1OewnF3e3JgYv4XywCHYrSQbNMnCA/s1600/Davinci.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="736" data-original-width="736" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGYG1jrg2teHNgmUofTzyqNljz7-kJXkCJnHmt94xvjnQS4LXm2VERrI7TAu9x6-uy3N_P_908PdoIsbjtzyYCMAd9nKRqIXJvz7eWzCFzOw1NIy1OewnF3e3JgYv4XywCHYrSQbNMnCA/s200/Davinci.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
If you wait for perfection, you'll never share it. And art is not art if it is not shared.<br />
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I have a writer colleague, who will go nameless, who said once during a bookstore event we were sharing, that when she is finally finished with a manuscript, she is certain it is exactly how she wants it. Every little corner of it. That is probably true. She's an excellent writer. But I would argue that she is only <i>finished</i> with it, that is only <i>perfect</i>, at that very place and time. At that very moment. In time—weeks, months, years, or decades—she will look back at that work—even a published work—and see something she wished she had done differently. I guarantee it.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqa3MG_L3L7K-X_YpQe2wCpC6sufhyphenhyphenKu8hJsti7OY7E6RY72MrUWW6GAt3so0Xy4UWaRvr7Wk9uzu-zqE4H67zf698fGxdw8QoNOwMmW64tsFoTslkFSOZU5IRDAVhlSRDKUwE0NEPATM/s1600/the-first-draft-of-anything-is-shit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="640" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqa3MG_L3L7K-X_YpQe2wCpC6sufhyphenhyphenKu8hJsti7OY7E6RY72MrUWW6GAt3so0Xy4UWaRvr7Wk9uzu-zqE4H67zf698fGxdw8QoNOwMmW64tsFoTslkFSOZU5IRDAVhlSRDKUwE0NEPATM/s200/the-first-draft-of-anything-is-shit.jpg" width="160" /></a></div>
There is not one piece of writing—published books, short stories, essays, journalism—that I have "finished" that at some point in the future I have not wanted to adjust, change, rearrange. A word here. A sentence there.<br />
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Perfection, like inspiration, is elusive.<br />
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And that fact brings me to this:<br />
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SUBMIT YOUR WORK.<br />
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The Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park, Illinois is open for short story submissions. The HEMINGWAY SHORTS contest is all-inclusive—beginners, veterans, writers of all types are encouraged to offer their work. And one of them should be <i>you</i>. Write no more than 1500 words and submit for a chance at publication and a grand prize of $500.<br />
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Here's the link to do just that: <b><a href="https://www.hemingwaybirthplace.com/hemingway-shorts/" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">Submit—Hemingway Shorts</span></a></b><br />
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Put your work out there. Make it the best you can, but shun perfection. You can tweak and edit and rework ad nauseum. Just let it go. It will do you good.<br />
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Art must be shared.<br />
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<br />David W. Bernerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01032217219609798142noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-582457967959829033.post-83690033401013791172018-01-23T15:00:00.001-08:002018-01-23T18:21:48.280-08:00On Winter Writing<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<i><b><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Your intuition knows what to write, so get out of the way. — </span></b></i><b><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Ray Bradbury.</span></b></h2>
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Last night left a dusting of snow on this morning of dim light and colorless sky. The temperatures were in the 50s yesterday. Today, we'll get no better than 34 degrees. I had to turn on the heater inside the writer shed an hour early to be sure it would be tolerable to remain inside for a few hours of navigating my way around what I've been writing. Still, there's beauty in the harsh air and the bleakness of a late January day. It's the shades of gray, the hues of white and black, and just enough chill in the air to remind you that we have some time to go before the newness of a spring. This is what I might label as the time of anticipatory despair. I predict more winter gloom before the light of a new season.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjl_noCPpFY0Iy2ZPeAYbQU5HvQYXdiNYyqgYW_DMhHk7h9S754xpWSCBA_MGhu5M2BJgrch21KohxCxO79Uq6D85bQz0MRZeCBJtRJgpYAINSJ6fgvvwsgsjrbFFQVL-hcBftmPPw7DzM/s1600/IMG_1993.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjl_noCPpFY0Iy2ZPeAYbQU5HvQYXdiNYyqgYW_DMhHk7h9S754xpWSCBA_MGhu5M2BJgrch21KohxCxO79Uq6D85bQz0MRZeCBJtRJgpYAINSJ6fgvvwsgsjrbFFQVL-hcBftmPPw7DzM/s200/IMG_1993.JPG" width="200" /></a>And this is exactly how I feel creatively.<br />
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It's not unusual. It's the norm. Anyone who creates feels this. What am I doing? Why am I doing it? Is this any good? Is anything I've ever done any good? Will I write myself out of a cold season into a warm one? I've had a sliver of success with my writing. A few awards. Relatively good reviews. But it's not about the outside accolades; it's about the inside accolades. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjom4YS6aLZQfdC5V735-uhdNR6autKN3wGj9KZu5sAVG7JdsxLIxxrYgmiP3UqIIA4B5Z9PmEDWB2xRQZfs0Scp1RwxBcbluRCW8IxNFu-JNPV9X3e8P8VZHoYfMPj7p6oPsmPjCGi1XY/s1600/IMG_0855.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjom4YS6aLZQfdC5V735-uhdNR6autKN3wGj9KZu5sAVG7JdsxLIxxrYgmiP3UqIIA4B5Z9PmEDWB2xRQZfs0Scp1RwxBcbluRCW8IxNFu-JNPV9X3e8P8VZHoYfMPj7p6oPsmPjCGi1XY/s200/IMG_0855.jpg" width="200" /></a><br />
Don't worry. This is not going to be some navel-gazing piece about artistic self-doubt. How trite. Pathetic. Boring. Instead, this is about how this sort of gloom, this kind of mini despair, is useful. Even needed. To get to the spring, one must endure winter and all its cold and seclusion and all those shades of gray. Just below the snow that has settled on the barren branches are the yet unseen buds of seasonal blooms. So, the writer puts on his heaviest boots, his thickest coat, his densest wool cap and trudges forth because he knows that if he can hike his way through the weather, knowing there is something good on the other side, he will discover some kind of art. He's been here before. He's questioned it all before. But he knows seasons change. They always do. He knows he's doing what he can. He knows there's something down there below the surface, under the snow.<br />
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Three hours behind the walls of the writer shed produced 2,464 words today. Time and space will let me know if any of them are any good. </div>
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<br />David W. Bernerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01032217219609798142noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-582457967959829033.post-47232659329857910972018-01-15T06:54:00.002-08:002018-01-15T06:54:43.053-08:00#dayofwriting <div style="text-align: justify;">
I can't stop myself from taking notes. While having morning coffee, I jot things down in the little notebook that I carry with me most days; I send myself cryptic comments in a text or email when all I have is the phone. I talk through my thoughts—out loud—when I'm driving the dog to PetSmart to give her a bath and write one-word-remembrances on an old business card I find in the car's cupholder. And then, at some point, usually early in the morning unless it is bitterly cold—temperatures below 20-degrees—I head to the writing shed and get to work. If not, then to a local coffee shop.</div>
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I'm calling this entire process, this never-ending work of writing. #dayofwriting. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0WJU4cqDRHVzBNIq6vD_s7T6egtjSuQaRV6T2AIJTUOmZCHyBPLOYnFJoGr3Mepx4LHPFOtMpW0FCWrXwMHf7HqBxSAT8GNrcqE2b0f-JCPUnzN3MWQLPicf2TT0gfV6uQ-oLx4CZsac/s1600/MR-writers-block-guy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="418" data-original-width="600" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0WJU4cqDRHVzBNIq6vD_s7T6egtjSuQaRV6T2AIJTUOmZCHyBPLOYnFJoGr3Mepx4LHPFOtMpW0FCWrXwMHf7HqBxSAT8GNrcqE2b0f-JCPUnzN3MWQLPicf2TT0gfV6uQ-oLx4CZsac/s320/MR-writers-block-guy.jpg" width="320" /></a>Every writer I know keeps notes, is always thinking of writing, is hearing dialogue at a grocery store checkout and stealing moments from it. A well-known Chicago writer recently revealed at a reading that she got the title of her collection of stories while in the shower. Or was it while washing her hair? Anyway, you get the idea. Writing is...all the time. It's #dayofwriting. In reality, it's #nightofwriting, too. Dreams come to us and we awaken, searching for our notebooks to write it all down. </div>
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Writing is a 24-hour gig. Not that it's digging latrines or delicate brain surgery. Not that it requires the bravery of a soldier or policeman; not that it employs the smarts of an MIT mathematician. But our heads are always churning, thinking, developing, observing, sensing, shaping, massaging. This is not a complaint or the rant of a look-how-special-we-tortured-artists-are writer. No, it's only a clarification of the work.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilavTFkR9g7qMro__gWwmobRd5GBsNsR3Z9HeWLxDWv5rsHRk9_4tErrGErPJLCJz_4vqn9Y57wlDql-tUF5Us1Am4mUnXEGaZKNCtHWZt9hZAjeFtxPDatjjSQJGMfL9qPwJ6IMu1jG0/s1600/tumblr_m7a8ikKPuO1qi3fimo1_500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="333" data-original-width="500" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilavTFkR9g7qMro__gWwmobRd5GBsNsR3Z9HeWLxDWv5rsHRk9_4tErrGErPJLCJz_4vqn9Y57wlDql-tUF5Us1Am4mUnXEGaZKNCtHWZt9hZAjeFtxPDatjjSQJGMfL9qPwJ6IMu1jG0/s320/tumblr_m7a8ikKPuO1qi3fimo1_500.jpg" width="320" /></a>Let me explain. </div>
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When I've conducted readings or workshops, I am almost always asked this question: When do you write?</div>
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I default to this answer: I'm a morning writer, mostly. I like early in the day. Can't write for more than a few hours at a time. I take a break and sometimes I get back at it later. </div>
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But that's only the actual <i>writing, </i>the physical putting fingers on computer keys and trying to type out something that makes sense. The real answer to "When do you write?" is this: <b>Every single moment of every single day.</b> It's all the notetaking, the research, the staring into the sky, the walks around the neighborhood, the meeting at the college where I work when I should be thinking about curriculum and I'm instead wondering what my character is supposed to say in that critical scene when his father dies. The real work is being done between tiny slivers of time when I am doing something else. <b> </b> </div>
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#dayofwriting<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbu8Uab8J6BZTetuID_bseNyDh9mpN6avF-dj3CStYLPFQgEPt79x7nOUgqC4XCNtHeyxGSxcpQu0fl4eo-bt-uxAI6VTgO_SkCnkHhfkrOkDJa0pJPgkyj7PCRKZJoSVfOTVDLME4IUM/s1600/181a3d185a84099077c07bf8afd30537.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1106" data-original-width="736" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbu8Uab8J6BZTetuID_bseNyDh9mpN6avF-dj3CStYLPFQgEPt79x7nOUgqC4XCNtHeyxGSxcpQu0fl4eo-bt-uxAI6VTgO_SkCnkHhfkrOkDJa0pJPgkyj7PCRKZJoSVfOTVDLME4IUM/s320/181a3d185a84099077c07bf8afd30537.jpg" width="211" /></a>So, with this, I thought it would be fun, on a semi-regular basis, to post a video, a photo, a thought with the hashtag #dayofwriting, and document, for lack of a better word, the writing "process." Not always, but now and then, when I'm doing the work—the physical typing or just talking through something, daydreaming or hurriedly jotting down a nugget of information—I will share it at #dayofwriting on social media—Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. I'm currently trying to flush out a manuscript, so it's a good time—or maybe a bad time—to embark on this little exercise.</div>
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We'll see. Happy #dayofwriting. </div>
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FB: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/DavidWBernerWrites/" target="_blank">@DavidWBernerWrites </a><br />
Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/?iid=am-60662501713271732493161642&nid=23+sender&uid=24233260&utm_content=profile" target="_blank">@davidwberner</a><br />
Instagram: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/davidwberner/" target="_blank">DavidWBerner</a></div>
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David W. Bernerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01032217219609798142noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-582457967959829033.post-8919887066585145732018-01-02T18:12:00.000-08:002018-01-02T18:12:23.534-08:00Why I Write <div style="text-align: justify;">
I just read the final words of a wonderful book. It could have been the last sentences of many, many wonderful books that have sparked a new fire in me, but this time it was Patti Smith's <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Devotion-Why-Write-Patti-Smith/dp/0300218621" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;"><i>Devotion</i></span>,</a> a short, soulful work on writing, the process of creation, and the call from something heavenly that turns the pen to write. </div>
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There is now for me, as Patti writes, a "call to action" and a certain "hubris to believe I can answer the call."<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV7qn4ntbcM6w1_bb6JGEKDiUYIYt8D4sBqkBSV1V5bxYC2YPOZijeyWLy6usHz51LPdEyB_SPR9ZRcQVftDCc-uxk7FWGME7sDYWsCpaGJmy_2liLbT8mb1HgRImCoY1IZJGG2RId54I/s1600/sf-patti-smith-miami-book-fair-20171103.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="110" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV7qn4ntbcM6w1_bb6JGEKDiUYIYt8D4sBqkBSV1V5bxYC2YPOZijeyWLy6usHz51LPdEyB_SPR9ZRcQVftDCc-uxk7FWGME7sDYWsCpaGJmy_2liLbT8mb1HgRImCoY1IZJGG2RId54I/s200/sf-patti-smith-miami-book-fair-20171103.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Patti Smith, Courtesy Miami Book Fair</span></td></tr>
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This is what great works do. They ignite.</div>
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When I was the writer-in-residence at the <a href="https://www.kerouacproject.org/" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">Jack Kerouac</span> </a>house in Orlando, working in the same room where he clanked out on his old manual typewriter the first draft of <i>The Dharma Bums</i>, I was overcome daily with the urge to rush into that bedroom space and inhale the DNA left behind, to ingest the mystical powers of the art of creation. </div>
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In the attic space at the <a href="http://www.ehfop.org/" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">Ernest Hemingway birthplace home</span></a> in Oak Park, Illinois, where I was honored to take on the duties of the foundation's writer-in-residence, I again was compelled to write, to accept a great artist's energy, and try to convert it into my own.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv5Gh9ieT830j2MAkIEOTxyjLa-c7D-keoFCD3cOR2i8cBKbjlZtli0S9SZh16WnOECE67l9Spmv_-j2Ijr38Wxj0YltI8x18jxmSGy6WSW9qUH8eI8mpc1Ls6k9vTJsrXc31vraTVKkg/s1600/1000w_kerouac_house_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="667" data-original-width="1000" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv5Gh9ieT830j2MAkIEOTxyjLa-c7D-keoFCD3cOR2i8cBKbjlZtli0S9SZh16WnOECE67l9Spmv_-j2Ijr38Wxj0YltI8x18jxmSGy6WSW9qUH8eI8mpc1Ls6k9vTJsrXc31vraTVKkg/s200/1000w_kerouac_house_2.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Kerouac's Orlando Home</span></td></tr>
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So why do I write? To be like them? To copy? To emulate? To steal the light of their brilliance? No, it is not this. Instead, I write to be bigger than myself, to create something fine and layered in meaning, to discover what the greats had, what they found so unforgiving, so necessary a task. I write because there is no other way to exist. I write to resolve some phrase that needs care, to adjust a sorry sack of words into enduring sentences, memorable prose or poetry that will hang just above the moon to shine a soft light on what gazes below it, who wishes on a star. I write to discover, to illuminate, to wander and to wonder. I write not to mimic the greats but to become who I am through them. They are necessary, they are inspirations, they are godlike, but they are only images, reflections, monuments to what I strive to do every single day—write.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf-3eDoXnF12aZko4Qm3SuetRc-UJy3ZkRm2fV9tH5Qspyq1ec8cbcqVqBrTAeRrxxOormgfBumL2F8THanuRasL6gLLYYYRGTy9fijPseO60cKohFj-nduKTeMB2jleBmDY4upWMefck/s1600/boathouse.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="685" height="186" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf-3eDoXnF12aZko4Qm3SuetRc-UJy3ZkRm2fV9tH5Qspyq1ec8cbcqVqBrTAeRrxxOormgfBumL2F8THanuRasL6gLLYYYRGTy9fijPseO60cKohFj-nduKTeMB2jleBmDY4upWMefck/s320/boathouse.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Dylan Thomas' Writing Shed in Wales </span></td></tr>
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In my writing shed, my modest 8X10 studio on the property where I live, I keep an original watercolor of <a href="http://www.dylanthomasboathouse.com/" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">Dylan Thomas' boathouse</span>.</a> On the wall, I will soon hang a sketch of <span style="color: blue;"><a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1957/camus-bio.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">Albert Camus</span></a> <span style="color: black;">by artist </span></span><span style="color: blue;"><a href="https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/nick-young.html?tab=artwork" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">Nick Young</span></a>.</span> And I'm planning to print a photo of the Kerouac home in Florida where I lived for that glorious summer and tack it to the planked wall.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4WUTS4rkSK-4TugMutslMHTaIG38W1TB5_3zhjXF320TmsJsp3dW6gYsYdpXTOtO5rzEXL5GXYn_JpHmOgQte-Xk4zZ4fV-eHzxuqthgyfNQLHPS3LZj3gzjNALbTTJq1C3K63i8kiGk/s1600/IMG_1927.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1600" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4WUTS4rkSK-4TugMutslMHTaIG38W1TB5_3zhjXF320TmsJsp3dW6gYsYdpXTOtO5rzEXL5GXYn_JpHmOgQte-Xk4zZ4fV-eHzxuqthgyfNQLHPS3LZj3gzjNALbTTJq1C3K63i8kiGk/s200/IMG_1927.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i><a href="https://fineartamerica.com/featured/lalgerien-nick-young.html" style="color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-language-override: inherit; font-size-adjust: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; text-decoration: inherit;">L'Algerien</a></i> by Nick Young</span></td></tr>
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Each is a reminder to create something worthy of sharing, to write as one must in order to do far more than, as Patti Smith wrote, "simply live." </div>
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Why do you write? Why and how does it call you—that muse, that mysterious whispering spirit?<br />
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<br />David W. Bernerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01032217219609798142noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-582457967959829033.post-68345151075815765772017-12-28T04:46:00.005-08:002017-12-28T04:46:46.968-08:00Commit to Writing in the New Year<div style="text-align: justify;">
Here's my New Year's resolution...write until the well is dry.</div>
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I am convinced we need more writers in 2018; more fearless, more brave, more courageous writers. Not that we don't have them now. We do. But more is better. More is necessary. Humans are meant to tell stories, to shine lights on our lives, our dreams and fears, and shared realities. But to do this, it takes more than simple desire or nebulous inspiration. Writing—fiction, nonfiction, personal essays, memoir—is essentially a hard-won discipline.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKN7W6UpdAwNcdvhC7W26A70msr8Hsi_jPFueDeN6TZy18877tEdRsfq3ZevMLKFWhrFsY9bCAsy_LSLhd7YhefeUB0rkKAK3tZCT3CcxJU-htWFatAcuTaBirEsfy6bAYNd0hlNidpy4/s1600/discipline1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="337" data-original-width="500" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKN7W6UpdAwNcdvhC7W26A70msr8Hsi_jPFueDeN6TZy18877tEdRsfq3ZevMLKFWhrFsY9bCAsy_LSLhd7YhefeUB0rkKAK3tZCT3CcxJU-htWFatAcuTaBirEsfy6bAYNd0hlNidpy4/s320/discipline1.jpg" width="320" /></a> </div>
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I am fortunate to conduct workshops of all kinds from time to time, and much of what I hear from writers and would-be writers is this: <i>I can't find the time. How do you find the time to write?</i></div>
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Here's the answer: There is no time to write. You have to<i> make</i> time. And in 2018, I am kicking all of us in the collective posterior, including myself, to...just...do...it.</div>
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I'm pretty disciplined with my writing but just like you, I falter. There certainly was a time when I would say exactly what many of you say—<i>I don't have the time</i>. Now, writing is a part of my existence. I make time and refuse to wait for "inspiration." If you wait for some higher power, you may never write. For those trying to get to this point, I have a suggestion: In 2018 take part in what I call the <i>Take Ten</i> writing project. It's pretty simple. And even if you already have a disciplined routine, this project might help to renew your commitment. </div>
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Here's how it works in three easy steps:</div>
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1. Get a notebook. Something you use daily to dedicate to your writing. This can be a file on a computer or a nice leather journal or even a simple spiral notebook. </div>
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2. Write every single day. I know you've heard this before, but the <i>Take Ten</i> approach is a bit different. This time we want you to focus mainly, at least at the beginning, on simply creating a routine. You want writing to be like brushing your teeth, habitual. Find ten minutes. That's it. Morning, lunch, before bed. Find a spot that yours. On the train, on the couch, at the kitchen table.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBxYTE-OJOYG9KA9t3MROwjz0q4sMRi28oOE1uRh2p05SGnnLVXbLH2MUra1uQLlGGrhJXXjxHijnkf-VYY7JbU2JjmrQVG7kgR7MWc7LPUcIQmA1nwn3ntiYpGDp4Q_gXac2L6s4WIU8/s1600/discipline3.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="415" data-original-width="449" height="184" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBxYTE-OJOYG9KA9t3MROwjz0q4sMRi28oOE1uRh2p05SGnnLVXbLH2MUra1uQLlGGrhJXXjxHijnkf-VYY7JbU2JjmrQVG7kgR7MWc7LPUcIQmA1nwn3ntiYpGDp4Q_gXac2L6s4WIU8/s200/discipline3.png" width="200" /></a>3. Lastly, write for those ten minutes and <i>only</i> those ten. Time it on your phone, your watch. Write anything. If you think you can or want to write longer, DON'T. Just write for <i>ten minutes</i>. Then, after ten days or so, write as long or as short as you like. But, and here's the key, from here on out keep writing at that time of day and at that same place. After ten days, the routine is likely to have become sealed somehow. If you set the <i>routine</i> in cement, the writing will come. </div>
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Routine is what you are looking for. It's the bugaboo of the discipline like it is for anything worthwhile and <i>Take Ten</i> helps you to set that routine.<br />
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The approach is not unique, but it is simple. And the less complicated, the better. You can do this.<br />
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<br />David W. Bernerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01032217219609798142noreply@blogger.com37tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-582457967959829033.post-29735935316466062972017-12-19T15:52:00.001-08:002017-12-20T10:25:37.464-08:00Surrounding the Writer with Great Things<div style="text-align: justify;">
Many of you know I have a writing shed. It's an 8x10 studio in my backyard of my home outside Chicago. Nothing fancy, but it's my singular space. I built the interior myself. It's heated. And inside, I have surrounded myself with wonderful things. Not a lot, but special items that either inspire me, motivate, or simply make me feel creative.</div>
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In your artistic space—whether it be where you write, sketch, paint, sculpt, sing, post in your daily journal entries, or mediatate—are you surrounded by beauty, love, comfort, your muse? Without sounding too pretentious, is that space "holy?" Not necessarily a place associated with a divine power, although it can be, but rather a sacred space of pilgrimage? When you enter this place, you should melt into it. There should be transformation. And sometimes the "things" we allow inside that space are what can help do that for us.<br />
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Here is what is in my space. </div>
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My shed has many books, but not all of them, only the ones that truly inspire and stimulate my own work.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwgX-gZ7o7AM7FSrHFRJgTLKXV9ZF7fyHJeMxPLgqXxsK1JMZpVNej_znrGOCLkZyhPl5LOcGD5zux8fGcbYwpstj2j-q9HymUHHoKQxCqTnjFtXIZ3jv3WlWqI6lkJjoKr6NUF1FIbzQ/s1600/IMG_1888.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwgX-gZ7o7AM7FSrHFRJgTLKXV9ZF7fyHJeMxPLgqXxsK1JMZpVNej_znrGOCLkZyhPl5LOcGD5zux8fGcbYwpstj2j-q9HymUHHoKQxCqTnjFtXIZ3jv3WlWqI6lkJjoKr6NUF1FIbzQ/s200/IMG_1888.JPG" width="200" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDtlTF2VRohCvFTC-4Vm_E1_uHitEvvyKDwO5UEBlqJwErRUM8CQLeDhB4280NwPuqkupJMLqefvUguUsy-wDQl2Ftl9NFwPVysqafO18sIIiWZo0bv7W48wb6jn3Qi66WaG22TfrBLI8/s1600/IMG_1889.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDtlTF2VRohCvFTC-4Vm_E1_uHitEvvyKDwO5UEBlqJwErRUM8CQLeDhB4280NwPuqkupJMLqefvUguUsy-wDQl2Ftl9NFwPVysqafO18sIIiWZo0bv7W48wb6jn3Qi66WaG22TfrBLI8/s200/IMG_1889.JPG" width="200" /></a><span style="color: black;">Art from loved ones gives me comfort. The photography is my son Casey's work. The bowl is my son Graham's. The tree painting is Jen's, my stepdaughter. And there's the pen Graham made. I use it to enter notes in a journal. </span> </div>
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There are remembrances. The hat is from the trip to Cuba with my boys; a baseball I caught in the stands at old Comiskey Park along the first base side; a photo of myself with a number of writers honored at the Chicago Library Foundation's Carl Sandburg Literary Awards. And an old typewriter just like the one in Hemingway's home in Key West. I found it in an antique shop decades ago. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOYADYBYj-dVap29M_nhlCNGI0ZEex8_VWHbpDF9PpNva5No73Y6LUt-6co5_k5Nyf4b51SDaUWl6aHFkz7TvhXDNsVKktFprrvVbiSwkBrGL6xnyLE5PpSfs1RwvFRFAWvW2N0dcsJ0E/s1600/IMG_1892.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOYADYBYj-dVap29M_nhlCNGI0ZEex8_VWHbpDF9PpNva5No73Y6LUt-6co5_k5Nyf4b51SDaUWl6aHFkz7TvhXDNsVKktFprrvVbiSwkBrGL6xnyLE5PpSfs1RwvFRFAWvW2N0dcsJ0E/s200/IMG_1892.JPG" width="150" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCBMN03apI6wpEShNCk9vQ6p3lyCqsGx1Bb9dlqVUHfmIEp3eGpqctZe5v8wLPEJDzCyQJrsZGAbXGq2vuf2dxfvJFRm2Gi_z3cjVqgUvw2HheItZr0c4_9VEHDphd1nEuXCZ8MSij-94/s1600/IMG_1897.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCBMN03apI6wpEShNCk9vQ6p3lyCqsGx1Bb9dlqVUHfmIEp3eGpqctZe5v8wLPEJDzCyQJrsZGAbXGq2vuf2dxfvJFRm2Gi_z3cjVqgUvw2HheItZr0c4_9VEHDphd1nEuXCZ8MSij-94/s200/IMG_1897.JPG" width="200" /></a>On my desk, a watercolor of Dylan Thomas' writing shed above a boathouse in Wales, a gift from Leslie, my wife, that I will forever cherish.</div>
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Silly things, too, like a Jack Kerouac bobblehead. I spent three months in 2009 as the writer-in-residence, living at Kerouac's Florida home. And against the wall, one of my two acoustic guitars. It's the old Yamaha I bought when I was 16 with the money I'd saved from delivering the Pittsburgh Press newspaper to my neighbors. The guitar still sounds great.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibSSP1f37RPrmRPyCD7M4E7vgJ2lEgivKF5dwMKP2WQjJrKE1C8ALFUaMnnm6FR0n7LBQN79fmrUvcjz9tf9mlrhtCA7GsM67r_ZbYQ6Qkvy2ffah2az7H_scT40Rw0WsLtanciBMmkuw/s1600/IMG_1896+%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibSSP1f37RPrmRPyCD7M4E7vgJ2lEgivKF5dwMKP2WQjJrKE1C8ALFUaMnnm6FR0n7LBQN79fmrUvcjz9tf9mlrhtCA7GsM67r_ZbYQ6Qkvy2ffah2az7H_scT40Rw0WsLtanciBMmkuw/s200/IMG_1896+%25281%2529.jpg" width="200" /></a> </div>
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Now and then I add items, but not many. Recently, I purchased an illustration, a print by my friend and colleague Nick Young. It's a portrait of Albert Camus. Camus' book <i>The Stranger</i> is on my top twenty list of all time. The framed print is on its way by UPS and there's a spot on the shed's wall waiting for it to arrive.</div>
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Fill your space with what invigorates, soothes, or stimulates you, and rid it of anything that takes you out of that experience. Build a place for solitude and daydreaming, where you can get out of your own head. Eliminate the distractions and embrace the creative.<br />
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Henry David Thoreau wrote, “The world is but a canvas to the imagination.” Take his advice and paint your space with all that triggers the beautiful, the daring, the expressive. </div>
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<br />David W. Bernerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01032217219609798142noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-582457967959829033.post-85445218510552592302017-12-15T15:49:00.002-08:002017-12-16T04:59:32.346-08:00How a Detox Cleanse Helped My Writing<div style="text-align: justify;">
My wife and I recently went on a <a href="http://www.health.com/health/gallery/0,,20570282,00.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">cleanse</span></a>. It consisted of two weeks of greens, very few carbs, no red meat, a mind-spinning number of salads, plenty of fish, no dairy, tons of water, and no alcohol or caffeine (which we cheated on a bit). We tolerated broccoli for breakfast and endured absolutely no chocolate. But we made it. </div>
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For me, the first few days induced a carb-crash. I was irritable, tired to the point of being weak, and even dizzy. I missed toast with my coffee. I missed my occasional scone. I missed my sandwich with thick bread for lunch. But I got over it. After 4-5 days in, it was a breeze. Energy was back and even renewed. When I struggled, Leslie shined and was incredibly supportive, making nearly all the meals and preparing my food for away-from-home lunches. Now, a week after the cleanse, we are accepting and embracing a new way of eating. It wasn't as if we were daily burger eaters, fast-food junkies, or Twinkies addicts. But this new commitment to eating leaner and simpler foods, and focusing far more on whole foods rather than processed, is a distinctly new discipline for eating, especially for me. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAspZrx-eAdMl-6jwSqc42_DWnpR0Ut8eN6qhZWvJWiNm-EvDTtjmdf78epcssEw5ZrsoxEcoDUWD6uKtGvZ47h76s-8-PmPpxFsbw5b6P0MeyZ-XB2_i8w5ZSIfzsA1-TA_A0ijxFL-Q/s1600/juice-cleanse.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="319" data-original-width="450" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAspZrx-eAdMl-6jwSqc42_DWnpR0Ut8eN6qhZWvJWiNm-EvDTtjmdf78epcssEw5ZrsoxEcoDUWD6uKtGvZ47h76s-8-PmPpxFsbw5b6P0MeyZ-XB2_i8w5ZSIfzsA1-TA_A0ijxFL-Q/s320/juice-cleanse.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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So what's this have to do with writing?</div>
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As I was chewing on another Brussels sprout, (which I love, by the way) I also considered how the choice of what we put in our bodies is much the same as the many choices we make when writing. We all know that certain words are better than others, a major factor in good prose. "Processed" words—that is to say words that are overused, pretentious, or pompous, words with too many junky "carbs"—are bad. Look for lean, simple words, "whole" words that are distinctive and clean. Don't over-garnish your meals <i>or </i>your writing. Too much sugar makes for an over-sentimentalized story. Too much "salt" leads to water retention and <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/bloated-prose-1.167972" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">bloated prose</span></a>. As writers, when we overdo "red meat," it can lead to "clogged arteries" and the story (our blood) struggles to flow with any ease through our vessels. Our hearts—and the hearts of our stories—suffer.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguUprhVNkkPy2Qqg6jLE9GpAqIhe7lwLdjNqRjKzPIJO5CppAy0XMhj0diCm3pq26mL4JCKdzZe2zTCq4-HVkM6ZY3gYxn4G7hFqDHyy9iSrqRzKV6s3aqdVz2NO2HeiqhA_w0wk4brPo/s1600/road+to+hell.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="373" data-original-width="736" height="161" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguUprhVNkkPy2Qqg6jLE9GpAqIhe7lwLdjNqRjKzPIJO5CppAy0XMhj0diCm3pq26mL4JCKdzZe2zTCq4-HVkM6ZY3gYxn4G7hFqDHyy9iSrqRzKV6s3aqdVz2NO2HeiqhA_w0wk4brPo/s320/road+to+hell.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Go on a <a href="https://writerswrite.co.za/simplify-your-writing/" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;"><i>writing</i> cleanse</span></a>. Rid your writing of excess, waste and empty energy. You'll not only feel better, your writing will be better, too.</div>
David W. Bernerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01032217219609798142noreply@blogger.com24