Newsletter #3: Kingsolver, Ozick, Ferrante, Writer’s Block, and Receipts

Barbara Kingsolver

Three Sentences to Imitate and Study

I.

Maybe life doesn’t get any better than this, or any worse, and what we get is just what we’re willing to find: small wonders where they grow.

- Barbara Kingsolver, Small Wonder

II.

They were all scarecrows, blown about under the murdering sunball with empty ribcages.

- Cynthia Ozick, The Shawl

III.

The circle of an empty day is brutal and at night it tightens around your neck like a noose.

- Elena Ferrante, The Days of Abandonment


Two Quotes on Writer’s Block

I.

“Writer’s block is a fancy term made up by whiners so that they can have an excuse to drink alcohol.” 

- Steve Martin

II.

“What matters is not whether you will face resistance, but how you’ll face it.”

- Rosanne Bane, from Around the Writer’s Block: Using Brain Science to Solve Writer’s Resistance


This Week’s Writing Prompt/Tip

Collect several grocery lists and receipts over the course of the week. (Preferably not your own lists or receipts.) Then, review them and write a sketch about the person who bought the items. Why did they buy them? Who are they for? What are they going to do with them?

Post your response in the Comments section below.


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Frank Tarczynski

Documenting my journey from full-time educator to full-time screenwriter.

https://ImFrank.blog
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Newsletter #4: Hazlitt, Fitzgerald, Brontë, Writing and Living, Document Don’t Create

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Newsletter #2: Kerouac, James, Eugenides, Writing and Vulnerability, and Reflections