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Tag: Mary Heaton Vorse

Robert De Niro and Me

Robert De Niro and Me

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image (via Flickr creative commons) “The mind of a writer can be a truly terrifying thing. Isolated, neurotic, caffeine-addled, crippled by procrastination and consumed by feelings of panic, self-loathing and soul-crushing inadequacy. And that’s on a good day.” —Robert De Niro If you watched the Oscars, you no doubt heard De Niro deliver this pronouncement on writers. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. I decided to experiment (with myself as guinea pig) and test his hypothesis. I…

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Writer on the Road: 5 Reasons Writers Should Take the Train

Writer on the Road: 5 Reasons Writers Should Take the Train

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No doubt you’ve heard that quote attributed to activist writer Mary Heaton Vorse: “The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair.” Okay, it’s a cliche, and writers are trained to give cliches a wide berth, avoid them like the plague and otherwise handle them with kid gloves. Sorry, I couldn’t help myself. But in the case of the seat-of-the-pants axiom, it’s true that much of writing depends upon…

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