I write by hand, and handwriting is drawing, the hand moves and leaves ink traces on the paper – – isn’t that drawing?
– Mary Ruefle
Austin Kleon interviewed Mary Ruefle via type-writer and postal service.
Read the entire, brilliant, interview here.
Author: Jack Fuzz
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Never in his life had he seen a river before – this sleek, sinuous, full bodied animal, chasing and chuckling, gripping things with a gurgle and leaving them with a laugh, to fling itself on fresh playmates that shook themselves free, and were caught and held again.
An original description of a river is rare, but Kenneth Grahame unlocks one here. Since it’s a long one, I’ll break it up into three parts.
Grahame, Kenneth. The Wind in the Willows. United Kingdom, Welbeck Editions, 2021. pp11
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One learns by thinking about writing, and by talking about writing — but primarily through writing.
Mary OliverIt’s in the doing, where the learning happens.
Oliver, Mary. A Poetry Handbook. Taiwan, Harcourt Brace & Company, 1994. pp17
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I knew it was my own doing, and no one else’s; but I was too miserable to repent. I felt I could drag myself but little farther; pretty soon, I must lie down and die on these wet mountains like a sheep or a fox, and my bones must whiten there like the bones of a beast. My head was light perhaps; but I began to love the prospect, I began to glory in the thought of such a death, alone in the desert, with the wild eagles besieging my last moments.
– David BalfourThat line my bones must whiten there like the bones of a beast cuts. Robert Louis Stevenson is a master of depicting suffering.
Stevenson, Robert Louis. Kidnapped. New York: Running Press, 1989. pp226
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Imagine if Jhumpa Lahiri taught a class on journaling and diaries. What would the Syllabus look like?
From the Paris Review:
Course Description:
What inspires a writer to keep a diary, and how does reading a diary enhance our appreciation of the writer’s creative journey? How do we approach reading texts that were perhaps never intended to be published or read by others? What does keeping a diary teach us about dialogue and description, or about creating character and plot, about narrating the passage of time? How is a diary distinct from autofiction? In this workshop we will evaluate literary diaries—an intrinsically fluid genre—not only as autobiographical commentaries but as incubators of self-knowledge, experimentation, and intimate engagement with other texts. We will also read works in which the diary serves as a narrative device, blurring distinctions between confession and invention, and complicating the relationship between fact and fiction. Readings will serve as inspiration for establishing, appreciating, and cultivating this writerly practice.
Schedule
Week 1: Susan Sontag, Reborn: Diaries and Notebooks, 1947–1963
Week 2: André Gide, Journals and The Counterfeiters
Week 3: Franz Kafka, Diaries, 1910–1923
Week 4: Virginia Woolf, A Writer’s Diary
Week 5: Carolina Maria de Jesus, Child of the Dark
Week 6: Cesare Pavese, The Burning Brand: Diaries 1935–1950
Week 7: Bram Stoker, Dracula
Week 8: Robert Walser, A Schoolboy’s Diary; James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Week 9: Leonora Carrington, Down Below; Primo Levi, “His Own Blacksmith: To Italo Calvino”
Week 10: Annie Ernaux, Happening
Week 11: Lydia Davis, “Cape Cod Diary”; Sarah Manguso, Ongoingness
Week 12: Alba de Céspedes, Forbidden Notebook
Week 13: Alba de Céspedes, Forbidden Notebook
Lahiri, Jhumpa. “Syllabus: Diaries.” The Paris Review, 28 Mar. 2024, www.theparisreview.org/blog/2024/03/28/syllabus-diaries/.I’d add two more to the list. Josep Pla‘s The Gray Notebook and Charles Darwin’s Voyage of the Beagle.
The Paris Review’s Syllabi series is a gem. Read the Archives here.
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Here’s a 31-day daily drawing practice plan with each exercise limited to 15 minutes. The exercises are based on the concepts from the book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.
Built with Claude 3 Sonnet.
Each day includes one line of context for the exercise:
Day 1 – Pure Contour Drawing (15 mins) – Draw objects without looking at paper to improve hand-eye coordination.
Day 2 – Negative Space (15 mins) – Focus on the spaces around objects rather than the objects themselves.
Day 3 – Upside-Down (15 mins) – Draw an inverted image to avoid symbolic thinking.
Day 4 – Gesture Drawing (15 mins) – Capture the essence of a pose or movement in a very short time.
Day 5 – Sight-Sizing (15 mins) – Analyze proportions by using a pencil as a relative measurement tool.Day 6 – Value Study (15 mins) – Render just the pattern of lights and darks in a scene.
Day 7 – Portrait (15 mins) – Apply right-mode techniques to drawing the human face and features.
Day 8 – Pure Contour (15 mins) – Draw complex objects like furniture without lifting your pencil.
Day 9 – Negative Space (15 mins) – Try drawing the negative spaces between overlapping objects.
Day 10 – Upside-Down (15 mins) – Draw an inverted portrait or figure to avoid preconceived symbols.Day 11 – Gesture (15 mins) – Do a series of very quick gesture drawings capturing motion.
Day 12 – Sight-Sizing (15 mins) – Analyze proportions of an interior scene or architectural study.
Day 13 – Value Study (15 mins) – Render value patterns of folded drapery or crumpled paper.
Day 14 – Still Life (15 mins) – Apply right-mode techniques to drawing an arrangement of objects.Day 15 – Pure Contour (15 mins) – Draw a household appliance or tool in one continuous line.
Day 16 – Negative Space (15 mins) – Explore negative spaces in a natural outdoor environment.
Day 17 – Upside-Down (15 mins) – Draw an inverted view of your workspace or living area.
Day 18 – Gesture (15 mins) – Capture gestures and poses from watching people in a public place.Day 19 – Sight-Sizing (15 mins) – Analyze proportions of a room interior or piece of furniture.
Day 20 – Value Study (15 mins) – Render patterns of light and shadow on a textured surface.
Day 21 – Animal Study (15 mins) – Apply right-mode techniques to drawing animals or pets.
Day 22 – Pure Contour (15 mins) – Draw a bicycle, machine, or object with many interlocking parts.Day 23 – Negative Space (15 mins) – Explore negative spaces between buildings or architectural forms.
Day 24 – Upside-Down (15 mins) – Draw an inverted landscape, cityscape or tree study.
Day 25 – Gesture (15 mins) – Do gesture drawings of yourself in a mirror to capture different poses.
Day 26 – Sight-Sizing (15 mins) – Analyze proportions of a piece of furniture or architectural detail.Day 27 – Value Study (15 mins) – Render the value pattern on a face or figure study.
Day 28 – Perspective (15 mins) – Use sight-sizing to analyze perspective in an interior or street scene.
Day 29 – Review (15 mins) – Review your drawings from the past week and reflect on progress.
Day 30 – Themed Project (15 mins) – Combine multiple right-mode techniques in a drawing unified by a theme.Day 31 – Freestyle (15 mins) – Draw any subject matter while consciously applying the right-mode techniques.
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I was often tempted to turn tail, but held my ground for all that, and got some profit of my lessons; if it was but to stand on guard with an assured countenance, which is often all that is required. So, though I could never in the least please my master, I was not altogether displeased with myself.
David Balfour“Turn tail” sounds like a 50’s phrase, but here it is, in print, from a book published in 1886.
One more thing. Sometimes all it takes is standing confidently, acting confidently to deter.
And one final thing. The one person you don’t want to be displeased with is yourself.
Stevenson, Robert Louis. Kidnapped. New York: Running Press, 1989. pp189
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But readers persist, silently making their way though the great works, keeping unbroken the chain that takes us back, generation by generation, through human history. It is not just scholarship that keeps great texts alive, but the life of the common reader, the silent, unheralded reader, who finds herself unable to complete a bus journey without resorting to her scrawny old copy of Bleak House
Henry Oliver, from The Life of a Common ReaderYou, dear reader, can be part of that unbroken chain.
Persist!
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If you want me to be at my best, I want to look my best.
– Bill Nighy
Floodlights and Goalposts 