Welcome to the Writing archives. The posts are listed in chronological order. Click the post title to read more.
I only mentioned David Foster Wallace once. Seriously. Hanging out with The Teacher and four other writers at Grumpy’s and he only came up once. Granted that once was a five-minute mini-lecture delivered in breathless gasps that included “I love him, I love him, and he hated Updike.” But at least it was only once [...]
The post after your 10th anniversary post is intimidating. What do you write about? Part of me wants to gather people around my rocker and tell stories of the blogging days of yore. Back when if you wanted to comment on something someone had posted, you wrote about it on your own blog and linked [...]
Today, I Will Dare is 10 years old today! Permit a bit of self-indulgence as I share with you 10 of my favorite posts, one from each year. October 20, 2000 The Great Clyde Break-In: I turn on the light, roll out of bed and have the common sense to put on a bra (yes, [...]
Last week I had my first workshop in Short Short Fiction. For as much as I’m struggling with this class, it went really, really well. I can’t tell if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. I’m struggling because I’m still not sure about what makes something a short short story (aside from length). [...]
I’m taking an Innovative Fiction class at The Loft tomorrow. I’m mostly looking forward to it. Only mostly, because lately I’ve been Lofty McLoftloft. Class last Tuesday, Comicbook and Graphic Novel Conference last weekend*, Class Tuesday, Ben Greenman reading Wednesday*, and now Innovative Fiction. I love The Loft and all, but this is a little [...]
Every time I take a Loft class that isn’t taught by Dale or Vodo I worry. I like Dale and Vodo. I know what to expect from their classes. Even if the class is full of big, dull duds, I can count on Dale and Vodo to be funny and make the two hours worth [...]
I’ve spent most of my waking hours the past week or so working. I’m all working working all the time with the working and it makes me boring. No, that’s the not true. I’ve got a little to-do list on Enid’s dashboard filled with ideas of stuff to write about for this here blog. The [...]
Earlier this morning while I was working on a review of The Ask (it’ll be on MN Reads tomorrow), I looked up the word philandering. I was doing it more to make sure I was spelling it correctly and not for the meaning. I was pretty sure I knew what it meant. It meant someone [...]
I am in love with Slate’s list of words David Foster Wallace circled in his dictionary. Circling words would be something I’d do if I still used an old fashioned dictionary. I have a lovely, fat dictionary. It’s one of those “unabridged” numbers, in fact it’s Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary. Sucker weighs like nine [...]
Friday night my friend, Hypster Mom, hosted a sort of literary salon featuring J.C. Hallman author of many things, most recently the short story collection The Hospital for Bad Poets. Before he read a story he talked a little about a book he edited called, The Story About the Story. Specifically he talked about the [...]
Monday I fell into some January funk and it took a long time to get climb out of it (when you have adult-onset ADD two days is a very long time). The funk yesterday was so awful that I totally shut down. I spent the day whining, taking a hot bath, and napping. It was [...]
I’m a little cranky because I just read an awful graphic novel and bad books make me angry. There might be extra vitriol in tonight’s rant when normally there would just be the regular amount of vitriol. You’ve been warned. Actually, graphic novels have something to do with my resolution. Long about yesterday I decided [...]
In case you missed it, yesterday MinnPost named I Will Dare was one of 10 Minnesota blogs worthy of your attention in 2010. Can I get a hell yeah? Getting this kind of recognition is pretty awesome. That’s probably a weird thing to say. Or maybe it’s immodest. I don’t care. It’s awesome. I work [...]
For most of this term at The Loft, I feel as though I’ve been doing battle with a faction of the class who seems to think that fiction can only be truly enjoyed or understood if you have some personal experience with the topic at hand. I’d even go so far as to say that [...]
MN Reads PW.net
