writing – Page 6 – joshua chamberlain

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 and sometimes it isn’t. MyContinue reading “nothing personal”

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 was before. He won’t getContinue reading “a letter from my past self”

failure’s pretty great

Yesterday, my roommate and I had a conversation about failure. I told him a story about writing my first full-length play. When I finished it, I printed out copies and invited a group of friends to come over and read it. This night was among the top five most embarrassing nights of my life. TheContinue reading “failure’s pretty great”

my favorite coffee mug

A few years back, some friends and I shot a web series. It was about our lives at the theater company where we worked and no, it wasn’t very good. I wrote an episode about dealing with writer’s block. The opening shot featured my desktop, including my favorite coffee mug at the time, which read,Continue reading “my favorite coffee mug”

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”

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”

streak

I hate blogging. I’ve never felt I was good at it. I’d writing banal things I didn’t want floating around cyberspace. I’d write a post, then wait months before returning to the website and guilting myself into writing another. I sat down a month ago and told myself I’d start writing a blog post aContinue reading “streak”

sounding like yourself

A few years back, I finished a draft of a novel. I sent it to a few of my old college professors for feedback. They were not encouraging and rightfully so. “You don’t have a voice,” was the first thing one of them said. “You sound like Jack Kerouac doing a David Foster Wallace impression.”Continue reading “sounding like yourself”

if you want to write songs, write songs

I had an interesting conversation today. I met a woman who described herself as a songwriter. She told me she’d been in Los Angeles for five years, trying to work in the music industry. She works at a recording studio, for a producer who has worked with a bunch of musicians we’ve all heard of.Continue reading “if you want to write songs, write songs”