Sarah Kanning

about the writing life

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writer’s bookshelf: on writing by stephen king

December 22nd, 2009 · No Comments

I’ve been thinking about On Writing, Stephen King’s memoir/writing treatise a lot in the last two days, because Monday morning I awoke to some medium-to-severe back pain. A trip to a massage therapist didn’t help, and it felt even worse today. Grrr. In general, I lead a largely pain-free existence, and on days like these [...]

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Tags: Uncategorized · book review · general · productivity · writing process

writing wisdom learned in ballroom dance class

July 23rd, 2009 · No Comments

My birthday present to myself this year was a ballroom dancing class, taken with my sweetie. On the first day we arrived at the South Park Rec Building VERY nervous, being the only F/F couple in the group (of maybe a dozen or more couples), but our dance instructors Shirley and Blue (who are in [...]

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Tags: Uncategorized · general · reading · storytelling

the triumph of pollyannaism

July 14th, 2009 · 2 Comments

It was the first evening of the CSSF workshops (short story writing taught by Jim Gunn and Chris McKitterick, and novel writing taught by Kij Johnson), and we were all gathered informally to have dinner and get to know one another before diving into the real work the next day.
People introduced themselves and chatted a [...]

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on the dubious value of “talent” as a concept pertaining to writing and other creative pursuits

July 17th, 2008 · 1 Comment

This just in from the business section of the New York Times:
“Society is obsessed with the idea of talent and genius and people who are ‘naturals’ with innate ability,” says Ms. Dweck, who is known for research that crosses the boundaries of personal, social and developmental psychology.
“People who believe in the power of talent tend [...]

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Identity crisis at The Productive Writer

July 10th, 2008 · No Comments

As soon as I chose the domain name (theproductivewriter.com), I started second-guessing myself.
Productive? Is that my primary goal? I mean, what about “daring” or “dangerous” or “exuberant” or any number of other funky adjectives (I’m a writer, I know adjectives).
And if I’m not churning out 1500 words a day (or 500, or 200, or whatever [...]

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Tags: general · motivation