Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Alice Hoffman interview and The Universe takes me by the hand

I'm not quite sure what's going on but for the first time in months I feel like I'm on the right track. I'm not sure if it's serendipity or the Universe taking me by the hand or maybe just plain old dumb luck, but this week I've stumbled onto exactly what I needed at the moment I needed it most.

First it was the Kelly Howell mention on Anne Stuart's blog. Then it was the wonderful link I found on CurtissAnn Matlock's blog and the information Susan Wiggs is providing in her Plotting from the Inside Out workshop. And now Caroline Leavitt led me to this Alice Hoffman interview that really resonated with me.

About two years ago Anne McAllister opened me up to Twyla Tharp's THE CREATIVE HABIT which powered me through the end of a difficult manuscript..

Maybe there's hope for me yet.

Enjoy the interview.

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3 Comments:

Anonymous CurtissAnn said...

Thanks, Barbara, for sharing the Alice Hoffman interview. Lots for me to think about. I have struggled for twenty years with the War of Art as Steven Pressfield calls it. Hoffman is correct-- it is freeing just to write for the art of it. Attending the OU School of Journalism has hampered me more than helped-- they taught firmly writing as a business. I never fit with that, never did, and it has about crushed me. Maybe I'm digging out now.

August 27, 2008 8:13 AM  
Anonymous Anne McAllister said...

Barbara, thank you for the interview. Interesting stuff. I like Steven Pressfield and his War of Art.

I think for me writing has to be basically about being authentic and writing what touches me and resonates with my particular emotional landscape. I'm sure you remember that I don't take direction well unless I can internalize it and make it mine.

Whenever I've had a problem with writing (I mean a big problem, not the piddly stuff) it's been because I was trying to write something that didn't "feel" right. I couldn't relate to it.

Seeing it as a business, like Curtiss Ann talks about having drummed into her at OU, would likely do me in. In fact I'm sure it would have.

Hope Tharp is still hanging around on the bookshelf for you to dip into. I dipped just last week!

August 27, 2008 5:58 PM  
Anonymous Barbara Bretton said...

The War of Art made a big impression on me too. One of the better books on the topic.

I've always had a problem with the writing as business side of things. Anne McA always teased me about being =very= right-brained! (INFP, baby!) I was so naive about the money side of things early on (and so purely on the side of art) that I was shocked at my first conference when a then very popular writer made "ka-ching" sounds and said that's what motivated her, that was why she wrote.

Sometimes I wonder if I would have been more prolific, more successful if I'd been motivated by the bottom line but I'll never know.

To quote Tony Soprano, "It is what it is."

Ain't that the truth?

August 27, 2008 6:51 PM  

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