The first real gut punch of loneliness during this pandemic came just the other day, with a swiftness of realization that took my breath away in the manner of eighth grade gym class. My lungs clenched enough that I had to stop my run, slow my pace and take in long breaths as I walked […]
Category: writing
The Bottomless Rewrite
I miss the cool glow of the first draft. The steady patter of confident fingers on the keyboard, the faith of production stemming not so much from a certainty of brilliance but the sweet enjoyment that comes from putting off one’s problems to another day. Problems, being, rewrites. I have a dear writing friend who […]
The win is in the revision
How a writer’s work isn’t done just because the first draft is. The first draft. It’s an idealized thing. A dump of words on the page, we revel as the tally climbs up, and up, and up. We take the challenge in November or any time at all with daily goals. We think we’ve won […]
How Long
When I lived here, a common question that would thread through conversations was one of how long. How long have you been here, and how long are you going to be here. I’d have these conversations with both expats and Ghanaians, and I loved being able to answer the first part in years and the […]
Copy
A few weeks ago, I watched Everything is Copy, a documentary about Nora Ephron by her son, Jacob Bernstein, a New York Times journalist. He probed his mother’s life and her adage that created the title of the doc, the notion that everything, and everyone, in a life is fodder. Ephron’s family, friends and foes […]