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Taking inspiration from a creature of the summer, a seasoned writer suggests a few approaches to stimulate, refresh, and gather your thoughts for the next stage of writing and spark your imagination with play.
Writing and revising often seem to hinge on bringing new possibilities into focus. A poet considers the camera obscura as a metaphor for how an inversion of the light can transform and attune us to the moment.
When it seems impossible to find a way into writing, a robust community can be a beam of light in the darkness. The author of Ghost Hour describes the ways that a new writers group helped rekindle and guide her creative practice.
A novelist shares the way a writer builds intimacy between readers and characters, and how the peculiar glow of the refrigerator light brings warmth to an audience of one.
When “normal” fails, embrace the strangeness and possibility the night can provide. A renowned fiction writer recounts the uncommon delight of inviting others to join her in writing under the moon.
What does it mean to truly let loose as a writer? The author of I’m Not Hungry but I Could Eat urges us to lean into the fire and pressure head-on, to let everything out on the page and offer it up to the world.
Many things bring light; some bring just enough to keep the monsters at bay. When ideal circumstances are scarce, focus on the dim, constant light that helps you get the work done, even if it comes from an unusual source.
Inspired by the bioluminescence of the anglerfish, the author of Something New Under the Sun encourages writers to furnish their own light and plumb the unknown depths of their text with the hunger of a deep-sea predator.
The author of Freedom Is a Feast examines the inspirational power of real-life events.
The author of First Love: Essays on Friendship has advice for authors who’ve lost their literary momentum.
