Why we write and why we don’t: Lesson 11 of Write it! How to get started

What I reveal here is intimate (the recording) and the lesson includes a fair-use pdf with a writing exercise based on it.

Photo by Jr Korpa on Unsplash

Here’s an oversimplification of the writer’s process, one that I use in all my courses. I argue that artistic work has two major components:

The analytical—what the writer needs to understand, the conscious work.

And the intuitive —the unconscious work.

This lesson and the writing exercise will focus on analytical work: a close reading of a terrific short story.

In this post and ones that follow, I’ll explore writers who started late.

Let’s begin with Tillie Olsen. Olsen didn’t publish her much-admired and ever-so-brief collection Tell Me a Riddle¹ until she was fifty.

Table of Contents for all 19 lessons