Your Friday Recommendation #21
Today’s recommendation is a recommendation we made five days short of a year ago that deserves to be repeated, a podcast on storytelling tips by Ira Glass, host of National Public Radio’s This American Life.
The podcast is meant for one entering the radio and/or vidcast world, but the message Glass has speaks to writers and performers, too. For the young writer or improvisers afraid of failing and thus, afraid of putting their work out there, Glass proposes you embrace the simple truth that you will fail over and over as part of the creative process. His main point is that one cannot gain experience if one doesn’t put something terrible out there, and this process all leads to truly wonderful work. How many bad stories must a writer write before they hit upon a solid one? How many bad scenes must an improviser be in before they have a solid set? There’s no definitive answer, but be sure it’s in the “more than a few” range.
Glass, too, is self-disparaging and points out the disappointing nuances of an old program while telling what he’s able to learn from such a foray into bad radio. Young writers and improvisers take note - a seasoned professional in his artistic field not only admits to failing but also to learning something from said failure. It gives one hope, doesn’t it?
Take a look and apply what you’ve learned.
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Technorati Tags: podcast recommendation, Ira Glass, storytelling tips
So where have I been?…
I’ve been a lot of places since posts on this blog dried up.
The last month has seen me wrap up the MFA program, walk at graduation, finish up one job, get promoted at another, finish a plethora of wedding details, wrap up the big end-of-the-year stuff at my jobs, and of course, a full week of being in bed sick as a dog. “Sick as a dog” feels a little cliche, so let’s go with sick as a sea lion after a shark attack. Actually, that’s a little morbid. How about, sick as a squid. Not that they get sick, but I think squids are awesome.
In a nutshell, dear reader, life caught up with me.
Over the next week, I plan to retro-actively toss up blog posts for missed moments like Your Monday Prompts and Your Friday Recommendations, plus other bits of reflection here and there (particularly about graduation, wrapping up workshop, and a few surprises, t00, like the announcement of my promotion at work). Look for a post that details all of the new posts soon, as well as future entries, of course.
Thanks for your patience, reading, and subcription.
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Technorati Tags: life caught up with me, retro-active blog, blog update
I graduated.
Today I can officially add this to my bio:
“Nathan Melcher earned his MFA in Creative Writing from Minnesota State University - Mankato. He feels pretty good about it.”
Huzzah!
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Technorati Tags: MFA, creative writing, mankato
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About
Brought together by mutual interest in creative arts and web development, Minnesota duo Barry Hess and Nathan Melcher founded Scrawlers.com in 2006. Scrawlers marries creativity with a web-based outlet for aspiring writers and The Scrawl blog seeks to add fuel your creative fire.
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