The Disobedient Writer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f73sF_-UaHc This is the first course that I am releasing on Udemy.com, an international platform for online courses of all kind. For a full description and registration please visit https://www.udemy.com/the-disobedient-writer-break-the-rules-and-free-your-story Break the rules and free your story “Write what you know”, “Find your voice,” “Outline” - rules and conventions are pervasive in fiction writing, and whether we… Continue reading New course: Break the Rules and Free Your Story

General Writing

On being a disobedient writer

March 14, 2017April 29, 2017 Anya Achtenberg

You have the final say in shaping your work; the first say in its birth; the real responsibility of bringing it forth in a way that is true to your project and your truth. You might work tirelessly to learn, to hear, to read, to be open to the truths of other writers; you might… Continue reading On being a disobedient writer

Beyond writer's block, Creative Process, General Writing, Voice

Trusting Our Own Vision, or: The Late Bloomers’ Club

January 18, 2013April 29, 2017 Anya Achtenberg

For A.M.-C. “The bud stands for all things, even those things that don't flower, for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing; though sometimes it is necessary to reteach a thing its loveliness” From Galway Kinnell, “St. Francis and the Sow” I was a small girl in Brooklyn, between broken English and broken hearts, whispered Yiddish,… Continue reading Trusting Our Own Vision, or: The Late Bloomers’ Club

Writing courses

Online writing courses and the idea of discipline

April 2, 2012April 28, 2017 Anya Achtenberg

I want to suggest a new discipline. I am of course not saying that getting yourself to the desk is not an important part of being a writer. But many of us, for many reasons---including being unsupported in a society that instills competition as a way to art and creativity---have the idea or are somehow… Continue reading Online writing courses and the idea of discipline

Creative Process, Fictional worlds, Uncategorized

Despair, Joy, Complexity: Against writing default endings to fictional stories.

March 19, 2009April 28, 2017 Anya Achtenberg

March 19, 2009 (coincidentally, the day before spring) Interesting times, no? Hope? Change? Doom? Restorative justice? Innocence Project? Families Destroyed. New Kinds of Families Being Created. War Crimes. Truth and Reconciliation. Environmental Destruction. Melting Ice Caps. Reclaiming the Rainforest. Greening the World. Financial Collapse. Greening the Economy. Dying… Continue reading Despair, Joy, Complexity: Against writing default endings to fictional stories.

Creative Process, General Writing, Story, Uncategorized

Dead white English writer, and your sense of time and story structure.

December 7, 2008April 28, 2017 Anya Achtenberg

Dear Writers, I have a confession. I am in love with a dead white English guy, a writer. If it isn’t love, at least it is a shock of recognition, a wave of gratitude at being seen, the kind of amazement when someone brings something into words that illuminates, or puts into relief, or gives… Continue reading Dead white English writer, and your sense of time and story structure.

Character Development, Creative Process, Uncategorized

Character’s voice? Neruda said, “Speak through my words and my blood.”

July 15, 2008April 27, 2017 Anya Achtenberg

I want to respond to something someone suggested about my book, The Stories of Devil-Girl, and then get to what I really want to talk about, which has to do with the process of writing strong characters, and the profound reasons for doing so. The statement said something to the effect that this character of Devil-Girl,… Continue reading Character’s voice? Neruda said, “Speak through my words and my blood.”

Beyond writer's block, Creative Process, General Writing, Language and the Way of Words

How can we know the writer from the dancer?

January 30, 2008April 28, 2017 Anya Achtenberg

I am thinking that every act is a creative act. Only some creative acts provide an opening into something vital; other creative acts provide duplication, follow the path of habit, add to repetition, create walls - solidity - separation from the vital and the as yet unborn. And some acts, of course, create destruction. So,… Continue reading How can we know the writer from the dancer?

Creative Process, General Writing, Language and the Way of Words, News; things to look for, Poetry

Back to the Invisible: the intersection of truth and the poetic art

November 14, 2007April 28, 2017 Anya Achtenberg

Neruda suggests in his poem Arte Poetica from the first volume of Residencia en la tierra published in 1933, that the poetic art, or at least the poet, works and flounders and suffers "Between shadow and space, young girls and garrisons", which calls to my mind, somehow precisely, the situation of 4 young Muslim men from England,… Continue reading Back to the Invisible: the intersection of truth and the poetic art

Character Development, General Writing, Uncategorized

Bad guys: characters who are unpleasant, embarrassing, evil, heinous, or even unsexy

September 27, 2007April 28, 2017 Anya Achtenberg

Dear Writers, This may the be first in a series of posts on bad guys, on miserable, annoying, cruel and unusual, evil types. You know, all that stuff we like to believe we contain not even a speck of within ourselves. In the good old days, a writer could name their characters something so that when… Continue reading Bad guys: characters who are unpleasant, embarrassing, evil, heinous, or even unsexy