tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37180398.post115107218755111174..comments2024-02-12T02:28:12.317-05:00Comments on The Writers' Group: Making a Literary Life Friday: InspirationLynne Griffin and Amy MacKinnonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11107479565926998943noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37180398.post-63981349193990687982011-12-31T03:43:24.159-05:002011-12-31T03:43:24.159-05:00This can't truly have success, I suppose so.This can't truly have success, I suppose so.exposicion muebles madridhttp://www.muebles.plnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37180398.post-86418811594269967002007-04-22T11:09:00.000-04:002007-04-22T11:09:00.000-04:00Kristen, you & I took the same path to fiction: jo...Kristen, you & I took the same path to fiction: journalism first. I love stories like yours because it illustrates how just a little positive re-enforcement can change a life. Those notes in the margins urged you forward, then the invitation to the group. Of course you can write the novel. And you must.Lynne Griffin and Amy MacKinnonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11107479565926998943noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37180398.post-77487095920821813082007-04-22T10:05:00.000-04:002007-04-22T10:05:00.000-04:00About 7 years ago, I was taking my first creative ...About 7 years ago, I was taking my first creative writing class at NYU and I was extremely nervous. I had been a journalist for years, but had only just started to try my hand at fiction. I was out on an emotional limb, desperate for positive reinforcement, but my first two writing assignments didn’t go well. I just couldn’t connect with the topics and I was discouraged. About four weeks into it, we started to submit stories based on our own ideas. And not long after that, the instructor started writing encouraging comments in the margins of my work. By the end of the course, she had invited me to join her private workshop—a salon with about six other writers, many of whom were fairly well established. Though she told me I had a lot to learn about form, structure and such, the one thing she said that has never left me is this: "Clearly, you can write. And you must."<BR/><BR/>I still haven’t written my novel, but if ever I have doubts that it will happen, I go back and look at her notes and I remember that all things are possible.kristen spinahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12099514779097752438noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37180398.post-56603889410264186512007-04-20T19:24:00.000-04:002007-04-20T19:24:00.000-04:00Lisa, what a great story! I love it when teachers...Lisa, what a great story! I love it when teachers encourage very young children that way. Mine was when I was 11 and wrote a letter nominating my dad to the National Father-of-the-Year Committee. He won! <BR/><BR/>AmyLynne Griffin and Amy MacKinnonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11107479565926998943noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37180398.post-80017965573220420072007-04-20T17:10:00.000-04:002007-04-20T17:10:00.000-04:00I was in the fourth grade and we had a homework as...I was in the fourth grade and we had a homework assignment to write a story. It was supposed to be a page long, but I started to write and by the time I finished it was ten. It was a sort of Wizard of Oz meets the movie Journey to the Center of the Earth with a little Gulliver's Travels thrown in and a surprise ending. I remember getting started on the story and not being able to stop. It was such a rush and it was the first time I ever felt like I could do something special. I turned it in and the teachers were all passing it around and saying they should enter it in a contest. I was called in to somebody's office about the story and somebody else called my mother to tell her how impressed they were. After that, I wrote all the time and never stopped. I don't have any other mementos from that time in my life, but I still have that story.Lisahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00665632105920753931noreply@blogger.com