Category: writing
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the company I keep
When I started practicing Transcendental Meditation, the teacher would talk about how important it was to surround yourself with good people. “You are the average of the five people you spend most of your time with,” he would say. I’ve been pretty lucky to have had some good friends and…
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a nocturnal generation
In my early twenties, I took Kerouac a little too seriously. The case could be made I read On The Road at exactly the right moment, during the worst summer of my life, a time that would shape and change me in so many ways. As school resumed, I found…
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“make good choices”
Conflict is the engine of storytelling. Here’s the problem: I hate conflict. It takes a lot to make me angry and even more to make me yell. For years, I was a “people pleaser” who sought to make everyone happy, often as the cost of my own mental and emotional…
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where’s the fun?
I’ve been writing novels since I was fourteen. None of them have ever seen the light of day and I sincerely hope they never will. While I’ve always wanted to write books that people read, most of my early efforts had one goal: fun. As other kids were playing Xbox,…
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confessions
In How Fiction Works, James Wood explores Dostoyevsky’s use of layered character: Dostoevskian character has at least three layers. On the top layer is the announced motive: Raskolnikov, say, proposes several justifications for his murder of the old woman. The second layer involves unconscious motivation, those strange inversions wherein love…
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on the go
Between August of 2015 and September of 2018, I moved ten times. From my childhood home to my first apartment, from a rundown house with squirrels in the walls to a rented room in a lake house, from a commune in Cincinnati to a cabin in the middle of a…
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what happens?
Oftentimes, when I’m writing, it’s easy to lose sight of the important questions. I get wrapped up in my ideas, my self-prescribed brilliance, my ego. By holding too tight to what I’m making, I prevent the story from becoming what it wants to be. With storytelling, the simplest question is…
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where we come from
In her episode of Abstract: The Art of Design, Es Devlin makes the claim that, “the systems and influences of one’s childhood are inescapable.” While peering down on a model of her hometown, she says, “My work is as much a reaction against this as it is continuing to perpetuate…
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nothing personal
I’ve been writing a lot recently. It’s going better than usual and here’s why: I’m not being precious. I don’t throw a parade when I’m happy with the work and I don’t fall on my sword when I’m not. I show up each morning and tell a story–sometimes it’s good…
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a letter from my past self
Four years ago, I wrote a letter to my future self. This is what it said: dear josh, I’m sure you have plenty to tell me, but it will have to wait. You’re at an advantage. You’ll read this letter someday. I recently finished a letter to myself as I…
joshua chamberlain 