Contemplations of Purpose

In Walking on Water, Madeleine L’Engle writes: To serve should be a privilege, and it is to our shame that we tend to think of it as a burden, something to do if you’re not fit for anything better or higher. Later in the same chapter: When the artist is truly the servant of the…

Manipulating My Muse

In the introduction of MAKING A LITERARY LIFE, Carolyn See advises “a discipline of a thousand words a day, five days a week.” What does she mean “discipline?” Isn’t writing all creative and ethereal? In the early days of my dream of a writing career I developed the idea that writing, like all art, must…