Saturday, March 17, 2007

Krakauer wisdom

At our writing seminar in January, Lon Wagner said a couple of times, "Writing is hard."

Indeed. Here is Jon Krakauer (author of "Into Thin Air" among other things) talking about Antarctica, but he could just as well be talking about writing (or really any other challenging job we do in here):


"There is this paradoxical sense one has of feeling very small in this huge and threatening landscape. Yet when you feel like you're holding your own, there is a tremendous satisfaction that comes with this—that you can cope with this and you can appreciate it, that you can survive and prevail if you just approach it with some humility and some forethought and keep your wits about you."

To read the whole interview, go here.

2 comments:

  1. For me lately, even harder than the writing is the finding of stories and being able to tell the ones I do find. I sometimes get frustrated I don't get to practice these storytelling skills we keep talking about as much as I'd like.

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  2. Just keep moving forward, even when it's tough. Like Krakauer said, you survive difficulty, then ultimately prevail.

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