“Well, I also do it because it’s fun. I mean, writing is fun. Isn’t it?”

That was Nick Flynn, author of several books including the memoir Another Bullshit Night In Suck City and the forthcoming My Feelings, speaking to a Gotham class recently. The students laughed, some of them a bit ruefully. Continue reading “Writing as Play”

Last week, a Los Angeles jury threw the creative world into a tizzy. It ruled that Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke did not merely admire and emulate Marvin Gaye when they wrote their hit song “Blurred Lines;” it said they copied Gaye’s classic “Got to Give It Up,” violating copyright law. And it ordered them to pay Gaye’s estate $7.4 million. Continue reading “The Laws of Inspiration”

How could it end any other way? You called me, and I came home to your heart. – Robert Browning

This quote is one of my favorite things ever written about love. It’s great for the succinct way it captures that sense of love’s inevitability. Resistance is futile—you might as well just fall. But also, it illustrates the best way to write about love: simply. Continue reading “Writing About Love”