Comments for Writer Loop

Comment on Deep Pockets of Baltimore by jossello

jossello — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 03:20:33 +0000

Hope and resiliency are strongholds of a solid community, and Baltimore also seems tolerant of visitors, yet demanding of guests. I think there is a difference. You decide which one you are and act accordingly. Thanks for your comments Divis!

Comment on Deep Pockets of Baltimore by jossello

jossello — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 03:13:43 +0000

Thanks Jeremy, I have a huge respect for anyone who knows how to eat these things properly, safely, or successfully. It’s so messy and odd to crush, smash, pull, twist that you can’t help relaxing into a fast fondness for the experience. Mussels are definately a good beginner’s meal.

Comment on Deep Pockets of Baltimore by Divis

Divis — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 01:53:04 +0000

Oh Baltimore! Gateway to my little Croatian grandmother, age 15, fresh eyed and pioneering to start a new life in the new world. Baltimore, you hold your people so dear. City gritty and southern, full the world’s brethren, social ills and abandoned mills. You offer all the best and all of the worst. Package shops, crab legs, Artscape, white Ts, Heningers, 21st century enclaves.
Immigrant, charm, best city in America!

Comment on Deep Pockets of Baltimore by Jeremy Tucker

Jeremy Tucker — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 05:24:41 +0000

This is a cool little personal essay, Judy. Baltimore reminds me a little of the Jersey shore, with it’s crab shacks and seafood nooks and such. At this one place my best friend and I used to frequent in Barnegut Bay, the tables were covered with long sheets of brown paper, nut crackers, and little bowls of drawn butter. They bring out these huge platters of blue crabs, drenched in Old Bay, along with pitchers of cheap beer and hot rolls. I’ll never forget my first time: Foolishly trying to pry open a leg with my hands, I sliced my palm open! It wasn’t so much the cut that hurt, as all that Old Bay!

Thanks for the memories…

Comment on Asking people to read drafts by zerodtkjoe

zerodtkjoe — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 10:41:13 +0000

Thanks for the info

Comment on Asking people to read drafts by fenderbirds

fenderbirds — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 16:34:45 +0000

nice article, keep the posts coming

Comment on Lies steal from life, drafts steal from each other by jossello

jossello — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 04:30:22 +0000

Storytelling is an elaborate form of lying. Lies work best when you believe them while you tell them. They also get better the more you retell them. The details become more real.

Writing rearranges reality, but I’m not sure if it’s capable of lying. I wonder if lies are meant to be told, not written.

Comment on Saturday Section: Judy Ossello by jossello

jossello — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 07:07:37 +0000

Intense and intimate are two great ways to begin describing the way I felt in Cuba. Balconies and facades fell into the streets, Saturday market sold books once captured by pirates, and the bat symbol of Bacardi watched over the skyline in Habana. Plus, I kept trying to figure out what Hemingway must've thought of the place.

Comment on Saturday Section: Judy Ossello by Marla

Marla — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 08:54:43 +0000

Love the pics and the idea of place – share more! Didn’t you know us Cubans are always having intense and intimate conversations?

Comment on Lies steal from life, drafts steal from each other by Jeremy Tucker

Jeremy Tucker — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 18:05:59 +0000

Italo Calvino in ‘If on a Winter’s Night a Travler’ mentions something about falsification being the only real form of truth, and I think that’s one of the reasons I’m drawn to fiction. And I think that those questions–Which one should I edit, etc–can be answered simply by listening to the ever-small voice of the pleasure principal: what do I FEEL like doing? What pleases me the most? I like a writing process that is always slightly more visceral than intellectual, and I think you put it best when you say that characters from disparate drafts ‘come together’ and ‘do what they please’. Letting instead of forcing. But what really interest me is the difference between lying and fiction-writing. Isn’t fiction writing just an elaborate form of lying?