Op-Ed: Everything Sucks
Posted by David Duhr in 
There’s a scene in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road where “the man” finds some slow-flowing water. In this dry and ashy post-apocalyptic landscape, it’s a potentially life-saving discovery. I pictured myself diving headlong into the water, splashing around and taking immoderate, choking gulps and probably screaming and peeing from the excitement and relief. But the man is more measured: “He got a cloth from the cart and a plastic jar and came back and wrapped the cloth over the mouth of the jar and sank it in the water and watched it fill.” Then he holds the water to the sunlight: “It didn’t look too bad.” The man and his son, “filtering the ash from the water,” drink until they’re full.
Nearly subconsciously I looked around for something to write with, wanting to scribble a note, something like “filter water through a cloth!”
It struck me then: Though I’d started this book out of obligation (Yak Babies group discussion, episode TK) and hoping for entertainment and escape, by the end I was reading for tips. For prep. You know, for the coming dystopia.
When The Road came out in 2006, the kind of future the man and his son roam through felt far off, kept away by a long line of horrifying but foundationally stable dominos.
Here in 2022 that future feels much nearer. read more
Prompt: “All sorrows can be borne”
Writing Prompt: Write a response to the following line from Karen Blixen (aka Isak Dinesen): “All sorrows can be borne if you put them into a story or tell a story about them.” If you’d like to share — and we hope you will! — post it in the comments below.
Your Best 2021 Writing Experience
Discussion question: What was your best 2021 writing experience? That one particular day when every word was the right word? That time the walls came down and you wrote your way through a problem that had been nagging at you for months or years? Or when your writing and the environment in which you wrote combined to form a memorable experience? Let us hear about it in the comments.
Your Best 2021 Reading Experience
Discussion question: What was your best 2021 reading experience? When timing, environment, and the book itself came together in a memorable way? read more
Prompt: In 2021, I; In 2022, I
Writing Prompt: Fill in the blanks: “In 2021 I ______” and “In 2022 I ______.” Your responses do not have to be about writing & reading! Take it where you want it to go; let it take you wherever it wants you to go. read more
The Writer’s Ultimate Holiday Gift Guide
Discussion question: Help us build the writer’s ultimate holiday gift guide. What are the best literary gifts you’ve ever given or received?
Prompt: Hurts, Hearts, Keep Going
Discussion question: This week we welcome two new writing coaches! For a prompt, write a response to one of the following pieces of writing advice offered by Tariq and Darcie: 1) Write what hurts most; 2) Keep going; 3) Ask yourself what the story is doing in the reader’s heart.
Prompt: All the Places You’ve Written
Discussion questions: This week I want us to take a look at some of the memorable places we’ve written, whether they’re former favorite writing spots or one-time stolen moments during our travels, or even during our everyday lives. Write about the places you’ve written! And like last time, feel free to share a photo. read more
Prompt: Your Writing Space
Discussion question: This week’s post is a simple prompt: Write about your writing space. And share a photo with us!
Prompt: Your Last 10 Words
Discussion questions: Not a question, but write a story or poem or *something* using the last five to ten words you’ve looked up on your dictionary app or online or, if you can remember, in your actual dictionary. (If you don’t have such a log, you can use my words.) Also, share with us why you looked up these words, if there’s an interesting reason.
Is a Novel “Written By” Its Narrator?
Discussion questions: My writer friend operates under the premise that any novel he reads is a book written and published by its (fictitious) narrator. What he wants to know is: “Am I really the only one who thinks this shit?” So, is he? What’s your take on novels or stories as being the written product of their narrators?
Writing Out of Sequence
Discussion questions: Have you ever written a book, or even something shorter, out of sequence? Why does it work for you? What are the pros, what are the drawbacks? Do you find it difficult to maintain story/character consistency, and if so, how do you address that?