How Do You Get to Carnegie Hall?
“It’s none of their business that you have to learn how to write. Let them think you were born that way.” —Ernest Hemingway. No one wants to hear the truth when it comes to writing because it’s boring and painful. Words exist in our world so why can’t everyone write well enough to constantly produce beautiful poetry, galvanizing journalism, novels that enthrall and essays that change lives? You love to dance so why not be a ballerina? You love to speak so why not a TED Talk? The truth is no one is good immediately and many will never achieve anything beyond okay after dozens of revisions. An idea is not a book, movie or play. It’s a thought and until you sit down and make that thought come to life with excellent writing, like a dream, it slips away.
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Mother’s Day 2021
Yesterday my son called me to say thank you for being his mom since he and his girlfriend just got a puppy, and they are being kept awake and feel overwhelmed. “You were the best puppy,” I said. “Just perfect.” He really was. He slept, he smiled, he made us laugh and cry and feel like the luckiest parents in the world. He also obliterated my ability to detach, to write, to manage to be the struggling writer I had been in Manhattan replaced by being a struggling mother in Dallas, Texas. He owned me completely and knew it. He came after a childhood filled with anxiety and careless violence, an adolescence shadowed by sexual assault, alcoholism and major tragedies, the sudden death of my beloved best friend, and my sister.
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Why is the Personal Statement | Admission Essay So Crucial?
"Every accomplishment starts with a decision to try" —John F. Kennedy | Because it marks a period of conflict, change, and an opportunity to tell a story that is a marker of the end of childhood. Also, it’s a chance to really learn how to write well, to push against certain restrictions, word count, topic, and practice all the stages of good writing: brainstorming, prewriting, creating a thesis, outlining, writing a powerful conclusion, and then doing it all again in another draft. The college admission essay has a focus, an audience, and can be the first time your student has connected writing with passion. Here’s a description of adolescent development provided by the Upstate Center of Excellence:
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