A few years back, I went to see a Broadway play. Afterwards, I hung around outside the stage door and wound up talking to the director. “Be patient,” he said when I asked for advice. This is something at which I’ve never excelled. Be it waiting for a break, waiting for things to change, orContinue reading ““be patient””
Author Archives: joshua chamberlain
here and now
In the final episode of The Last Dance, Mark Vancil had this to say about Michael Jordan: Most people live in fear because we project the past into the future. Michael’s a mystic. He was never anywhere else. His gift was not that he could jump high, run fast, shoot a basketball. His gift wasContinue reading “here and now”
on bullshit
We all know the truth when we see it. And yet, so many refuse to look it in the eye. They kick, they scream, they cry injustice. Some deny, some obfuscate, some look the other way. It’s the true measure of a man to look the truth in the face and say, “okay.” For farContinue reading “on bullshit”
times like these
“These are times that try men’s souls,” Thomas Paine wrote in 1776, although it many ways, it feels as though these words could have been written yesterday. In times when it feels as though the whole world is ending, it helps me to remember history. I often think about the scene from The Seventh SealContinue reading “times like these”
hollow victories
While quarantined in the Midwest, I’ve been watching Cobra Kai on Netflix. As a writer, it’s tough for me to set down my analytic eye and simply watch something. This show is one of those rare exceptions. From start to finish, it’s just fun. Without giving anything away, it’s made me think quite a bitContinue reading “hollow victories”
the machinery of storytelling
The more I write, the more I come to think of storytelling as building a machine. The basic formula for story is a character who wants something and must confront an obstacle in the pursuit of that desire. But there are other parts to the machine as well, with metaphors, images, and tricks of languageContinue reading “the machinery of storytelling”
the stories we tell
I’ve been reading Patti Smith’s Year of the Monkey, which in light of recent events, feels all too apt. “A mortal folly comes over the world,” reads the epigraph from Antonin Artaud. Couldn’t have said it better myself. One passage in particular stood out, especially when read alongside James Wood’s How Fiction Works. As SmithContinue reading “the stories we tell”
Austin Kleon on parenting
In times like these, I often wonder if the greatest service I can do my future children is preventing them from being born in the first place. (Yes, I’m aware that’s a dramatic way to say I’m sure about having kids.) Austin Kleon is someone to whom I’ve turned time and time again for wisdomContinue reading “Austin Kleon on parenting”
yesterday
From James Wood’s How Fiction Works: “On March 28, 1941, Virginia Woolf loaded her pockets with stones and walked into the rive Ouse. Her husband, Leonard Woolf, was obsessively punctilious, and had kept a journal entry every day of his adult life, in which he recorded daily menus and car mileage. Apparently, nothing was differentContinue reading “yesterday”
writing and living
While plowing back through some of the old voice memos, I found a quote from a dear friend of mine, writer and musician Michael Winn. We were talking about writing and developing characters and he explained why he’d had such trouble capturing human life on the page: “Living your life makes you a good writer.Continue reading “writing and living”
