It’s the birthday of novelist Rick Moody, born in New York City in 1961. He had a privileged childhood in the Connecticut suburbs. He traces his passion for writing to his first experience with Hemingway: reading The Old Man and the Sea in sixth grade. “I probably liked the Hemingway novel because I was very interested in sharks. That was enough back then, the mere appearance in the story of sharks. Maybe I started writing just because I liked sharks. The really grisly ones. The kind that could bite a man in half.”
About Editing and Writing
a blog by Jack Limpert, Editor of The Washingtonian for more than 40 years.
Rick Moody: “You can see a big fault line running through the book — the before and the after.”
October 18, 2020
Nicole Krauss on Writing: “I am seeking the moment of change, even transformation.”
October 17, 2020
The Wall Street Journal Magazine asked writer Nicole Krauss to weigh in on the subject of conviction:
As a writer, I’m less interested in conviction than the breakdown of belief. The moment that draws you most powerfully into my characters’ lives is when they realize they’ve been wrong about something their entire lives. They have to admit to themselves the possibility of another way of being, of thinking, even of living.
The Washington Post’s Gene Weingarten: “I’m not a doctor, but I play one at home.”
October 17, 2020
From Gene Weingarten’s Sunday column in the Washington Post Magazine headlined “I’m not a doctor, but I play one at home”:
John McIntyre: “So you want to be a writer.”
October 16, 2020
From a Baltimore Sun column by John McIntyre headlined “So you want to be a writer”:
So you want to write about performances …
learn the difference between premiere and premier.
So you want to write about elections …
learn the difference between canvass and canvas.
So you want to write about polling …
learn the difference between percentage point and percent.
(While you’re at it, it wouldn’t hurt to learn how to calculate and check percentages.)
So you want to write about people who obsessively accumulate objects …
NYTimes Media Columnist Ben Smith: “When everything you write is going to be just swept away in the noisy, screaming craziness.”
October 16, 2020
From an Alex Kantrowitz interview with New York Times columnists Ben Smith on onezero.medium.com:
As the Media Equation columnist at the New York Times, Ben Smith is covering an industry going through transformation and turbulence. And as the former editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed News — a place I worked until this June — he lived that change while managing a newsroom of reporters who lived online in a VC funded media company.
In this week’s edition of the Big Technology Podcast, I caught up with Smith for a discussion focused on how tech is changing journalism, what media companies can do to connect with people that have shut them out, and where big tech regulation may lead. . . .
The Night the Washington Post Invited Donald Trump to Dinner and President Obama and the DC Press Corps Then Made Fun of Him
October 15, 2020
From a 2016 Washington Post story by Roxanne Roberts headlined “I sat next to Donald Trump at the infamous 2011 White House Correspondents dinner”:
Regarding the vast mystery that is Donald Trump, one question eclipses all others: Why is the billionaire reality star running for president?
I don’t know. You don’t know. But a handful of armchair psychoanalysts — reporters for major news organizations, no less — have decided that it all began at the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, where Trump was the butt of jokes by President Obama and “Saturday Night Live” comedian Seth Meyers.
Herbert Kretzmer: “He failed as a novelist but while working for newspapers began a second career as a songwriter.”
October 15, 2020
From a New York Times obit by Robert D. McFadden headlined “Herbert Kretzmer, Lyricist Who Reimagined “Le Miserables,’ Dies at 95”:
Herbert Kretzmer, a London theater critic who wrote the English lyrics to an all-but-forgotten French musical called “Les Misérables” in 1985, giving new life to what has become one of the world’s most successful theater productions, died on Wednesday at his home in London. . . .
How an Editor Can Help Writers Do Their Best Work
October 15, 2020
By Jack Limpert
Based on the feedback I got as an editor:
1. Pay me enough that I feel rewarded for my best efforts.
2. Give me enough time to do the needed reading, reporting, and thinking.
3. Be helpful but give me the freedom to write the story the way I see it.
4. Be reachable if trouble arises.
5. Protect me from others–fact-checkers, sub-editors, accountants, etc.–who make unreasonable demands.
6. Keep me in the loop if big changes are being made to the story.
When Editors Talk About Their Journalistic Sins
October 14, 2020
By Jack Limpert
A back and forth with the editor of another magazine:
Editor one: I’m tempted to write about the seven deadly sins of editors. One I sometimes saw was treating writers differently depending on whether you liked them personally. Is this something you sometimes had to deal with?
Editor two: For all my sins, I don’t think I had much trouble favoring one writer over I really drilled myself and the staff that the story is all—we just want to make it as good as we can. That overriding goal doesn’t leave room for favorites.
Five Writers Answer Four Questions About Their Work
October 14, 2020
From a lithub.com feature headlined “5 Writers, 7 Questions, No Wrong Answers”:
The five writers are Rumaan Alam, Leave the World Behind; Karin Cecile Davidson, Sybelia Drive; Max Gross, The Lost Shtetl; Anneliese Mackintosh, Bright and Dangerous Objects; and Corey Sobel, The Redshirt.
If you could choose a career besides writing (irrespective of schooling requirements and/or talent) what would it be?
MAX GROSS: Starting pitcher for the 1986 New York Mets.
ANNELIESE MACKINTOSH: Something helpful. Failing that, something lucrative. Or, if possible, both. Human rights lawyer.
