Posts by Lee Martin
Try Again: Hope and the Writer
Such a beautiful day in early November—sunny and warm with temperatures in the 70s. I’ve noticed a number of people putting up their outdoor Christmas decorations—all right, I’ll admit I hung lights from my eaves yesterday, taking advantage of the good weather, so I wouldn’t have to be freezing in the cold later. Outside of…
Read MoreA Tourist in a Familiar Place: Making Our Settings Distinct
Cathy and I live in a suburban subdivision that was supposed to have Trick or Treat last Thursday, but, because it was cold and rainy, our homeowners’ association took matters into its own hands, and we decided to postpone Trick or Treat until Saturday. So yesterday evening in sunshine and much warmer temperatures we sat…
Read MoreStories That Matter
I’m going to be presenting a session at the Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop on Friday, a session called “Writing Stories That Matter.” In preparation for that event, I had to think about exactly what I mean by stories that matter. William Faulkner, in his 1950 Nobel Prize acceptance speech, said, “. . .the young man…
Read MoreHidden Blessings: The Novel I Never Published and the One I Did
Many years ago, when I was first starting out in this writing game—I’d published stories in some pretty good places and I’d even been able to publish a collection with a new independent publisher—my agent was sending around my first novel. One day, she called with the good news that a very senior editor at…
Read MoreWriting the Worlds We Know Best
Many years ago, when I was in my mid-twenties, I drove from Fayetteville, Arkansas, where I was living at the time, to my native southeastern Illinois for the Christmas holidays. I was in the MFA program at the University of Arkansas at the time, and we were on semester break. The drive took ten hours,…
Read MoreHappiness in Stories
I turned sixty-five on Friday, and it was a good day. I’d be lying if I said I never thought about the dwindling number of years left without a certain degree of apprehension, but for the most part I do my best to keep my focus on the here-and-now which still contains plenty that delights…
Read MoreContext in Fiction: Using the Past to Create the Present
Our friends, G. and S., came to visit last night. At one time, this would have been such a simple statement to make; on the surface it might have even seemed banal. These days, though, the ordinary fact of a visit carries with it a significance only available if one knows the context. Sometime in…
Read MoreWriting in the Pandemic
My web designer, Steve Bennett of AuthorBytes, has started an online journal called The Pandemic Lens (https://pandemiclens.com/). It began in June when Steve ventured out with his camera to take some outdoor shots in Somerville, MA. It was the first time he’d taken an outdoor photo in four months. Eventually he came to recognize that…
Read MoreTechniques for Avoiding Melodrama and Sentimentality
One of my favorite stories is Raymond Carver’s “A Small, Good Thing.” This is the story of a couple, Ann and Howard Weiss, whose son, Scotty, on the morning of his eighth birthday, steps off a curb and gets hit by a car. He falls, striking his head, but he gets up and seems to…
Read MoreTen Quotes for Writers on Labor Day
On Labor Day, I like to give thanks for the fact that I’m able to spend a good portion of my time moving words about on the page. When I left college between my junior and senior year, I worked for a year and a half in the press room at a tire repairs manufacturing…
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