Field Notes of a Moldy Bear Slayer

nedhepburn:

nevver:

Six Tips on Writing from John Steinbeck

1. Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish. Lose track of the 400 pages and write just one page for each day, it helps. Then when it gets finished, you are always surprised.
2. Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down. Rewrite in process is usually found to be an excuse for not going on. It also interferes with flow and rhythm which can only come from a kind of unconscious association with the material.
3. Forget your generalized audience. In the first place, the nameless, faceless audience will scare you to death and in the second place, unlike the theater, it doesn’t exist. In writing, your audience is one single reader. I have found that sometimes it helps to pick out one person—a real person you know, or an imagined person and write to that one.
4. If a scene or a section gets the better of you and you still think you want it—bypass it and go on. When you have finished the whole you can come back to it and then you may find that the reason it gave trouble is because it didn’t belong there.
5. Beware of a scene that becomes too dear to you, dearer than the rest. It will usually be found that it is out of drawing.
6. If you are using dialogue—say it aloud as you write it. Only then will it have the sound of speech.

I haven’t been writing, but this guy always knows how to get me going…

(via npr)

Shenanigans

And further evidence that I should get up earlier on the regular.

With sunsets like this, who needs to venture far from home?

Since returning from my road trip in November, I’ve felt weird about posting to my blog. Maybe because I started it to document my travels and I haven’t really been anywhere but around the bay for a few months. My mom however, is finally back from six months in the UK, and my brother was galavanting around Mexico for three weeks. In honor of these loved ones and our shared love for adventure, I post again!!

Sam and I ‘helped’ Dad clean up after a really great (and BIG) Thanksgiving meal. I almost forgot how nice it is to hang out with the family, eat too much, and fall asleep in front of a football game.  

Home again and isn’t it just totally great? After a seemingly endless mostly dark drive home on the 5, I geeked out over the new and wonderfully accurate directional signs all around the park. You can actually find the hostel! Even in the dark with road work! anyway, all signs point to me happy to be home, and even a little excited to be back at work. This trip has been very special to me, thanks for following along and helping me to keep up this little journal. I’ll probably add some gems from time to time, so come on back now ya hear? xoxo

This town really knows how to make a girl feel special. And that’s a pretty nice feeling to drive home with

Duckaroni!

This morning I had to find a bookstore downtown, which is apparently a quixotic experience. But I have a long final drive home tomorrow (holy cow!) and I needed an audiobook to get me through. Anyway, this is on the side of the mall in downtown sd. Is it graffiti? Or was it commissioned? Seems a strange thing to pay someone to write on the side of your mall. By the way, they do have a really great bookstore all the way upstairs by the food court. Please buy books, it’s really difficult to buy a decent book on tape for your road trip when all the bookstores are closed because people can get it all for free on their ‘reading device.’