DonaldMMurray

“Revision is the reordering of experience so that it reveals meaning. It is the great adventure of the mind.” DONALD M. MURRAY "The Craft of Revision

Craft Lesson: Focus "If U don't have a theme you're sunk. Once U know the theme, you know exactly what you're doing. Sometimes you don't get it till the 2nd or 3rd draft, but once U know it changes everything." JOHN COLLEE Master and Commander: Far Side of the World @chipscanlan

Great interview or I should say, interviews. Caro would be pleased you went the extra mile.

Reading stocks our mind with information and connections between pieces of information—theories, ideas, concepts,principles—that grow and change as we grow and change,, experiencing, integrating all that we can take in from living and thinking.” @m_murray @chipscanlan

1/2 Craft Lesson: Reading “Our most important reading occurs when we read to comprehend everything that a text has to teach us. We read for the experience of the text and we read for the information we can mine— from it and more.

Craft Lesson: Inspiration Blocked? Blue? Turn to @m_murray's "Shoptalk: Learning to Write with Writers." 450 quotes that inspire, comfort, cajole. These literary vitamins will not only jump-start your writing but make you better at it. amzn.to/2Wk1XsA

Craft Lesson: Revision Compelling writing may be judged by the amount of material that isn’t used. What can be left out should be left out. Everything left in should develop the single dominant meaning of the story.

Craft Lesson: Support Look for co-readers to improve your stories: another writer, editor, teacher, partner, anyone who makes you want to keep writing. Avoid destructive types at the first sight of the sucking black holes of negativity found in every newsroom. h/t Chris Martin

Craft Lessons: Ideas "Editors and readers don't know what they want until they see it. Scratch what itches. Write what you need to write, feed the hunger for meaning in your life. Play at the serious questions of life and death." - Donald M. Murray

1/2 Profiles in...words fail. 407 Democrats and Republican U.S. Reps today condemned anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and hate speech targetting LGBTQ and other minorities. 47, all GOP, opposed the resolution: Biggs Brooks (AL) Buck Budd Burgess Cheney (Dad would be so proud, Liz!)

“All fiction is about change over time.” PAT BARKER

Craft Lesson: Submissions “Writing is not what you start. It’s not even what you finish. It’s what you start, finish, and put out there for the world to see.” - Nell Scovell, writer, The Simpsons, Letterman, "and many many spec and unproduced or unaired shows."

Once again, the NYT's Visual Investigations team, uses social media, exclusive footage and video forensics, to put the lie to an erroneous official story. Shame it wasn't around to debunk LBJ's 1964 Gulf of Tonkin lie that escalated the Vietnam War. nyti.ms/2H9DKls

“Learn your craft. And don’t ever let a piece of writing out of your hands until it’s as good as you can make it.” Dan Jenkins, R.IP. From a moving, funny tribute by his daughter Sally who followed his footsteps into the sportswriters' box. wapo.st/2XXCas2

"I never did give them hell. I just told the truth, and they thought it was hell.” HARRY S. TRUMAN. POTUS 33

"Part of becoming a writer is the desire to have everything mean something." - Louise Erdich

Friday Find: I can't remember how Don felt about Joyce Maynard, who lived in NH with J.D. Salinger, but I think he'd appreciate many of the ideas in this profile of a writer who, like him, mined her life in service of the craft. newyorker.com/culture/person…

Craft Lesson: Inspiration "There's nothing like boredom to make you write." AGATHA CHRISTIE

The magical things that happen when a writer puts down his notebook and uses his cell phone and Instagram and "made everything I did an act of note-taking." niemanstoryboard.org/stories/a-writ…

If you grew up or still work in a community newsroom, this poem, first in a series by veteran print dog Don Nelson, will make you laugh, wistful, and hope this crazy world endures. niemanstoryboard.org/stories/newsro… @JacquiB