The Writing Process – Page 2

01:02 Novelist Zinzi Clemmons

With her What We Lose, Zinzi Clemmons had the breakthrough debut novel you might dream of.

Upon its release last year, Vogue called it the ‘debut novel of the year;’ Vanity Fair called it “powerful” and the Atlantic called it “striking.” She was named a National Book Award 5 Under 35 Honoree, and the New York Times profiled her.

Though she is exceptional for these and other reasons (prestigious universities, born of a mixed-race South African immigrant mother), Zinzi has plenty to offer other writers by way of advice. It helps that she teaches writing at Occidental College in Los Angeles.

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01:01: USA Today Journalist Jess Estepa

In the pilot episode of my new weekly podcast The Writing Process, I speak with my dear friend Jess Estepa. She’s a national politics reporter for USA Today.

She also was the first person I called when I wanted to figure out what exactly I wanted to accomplish with this idea of mine. I knew I wanted to capture real lessons on writing from lots of different forms, but I wasn’t quite sure how to approach it. Jess patiently let me sort that out.

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Introducing The Writing Process: my new weekly podcast

Today I am announcing a new personal passion project: a weekly podcast conversation with master writers from an array of different forms.

Humans have spoken to each other for maybe 100,000 years (or, uh, a lot longer). But we’ve only had writing for 6,000 of them. We’ve cultivated corn for twice as long.

Even though it’s relatively new, we have lots of forms of writing: from short stories and novels to journalism and memoir to poems and lyrics and comics and software code. When I talk to friends who are gifted in any of these, I find they listen closely to the Greats in their form. But rarely the Greats from the other forms. That feels like an opportunity.

That’s why I’m launching The Writing Process, a weekly podcast conversation I have with masters from all of the many writing forms. Please subscribe on iTunes or other places podcasts can be found. I’ll also be posting each episode here.

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On Spark Files

As a kid, I kept a marble bound notebook with aphorisms, phrases, rhymes and orders of words I liked. Some ended up in stories and essays I’d write. Otherwise, looking back, I now understand that I was also just practicing my writing.

As an adult, I learned this had a term: a spark file, or a collection of terms and story starts to incorporate you otherwise. There is a difference between phrases I want to capture and the practice of writing ideas succinctly. Both have their role, and I now do something similar for both: collect ideas, story starts and specific phrasing. Increasingly though, I don’t hoard but rather let loose.

Annie Dillard says you gotta write and let it go