Reading Time: 2 minutes “Items in Stock” was, in truth, a misnomer. Some were complete, or ready for a final draft or a rewrite. Others were ideas or characters in search of a plot. Continue reading Top-of-the-head inventory, 1979
Reading Time: 3 minutes Freedom of choice includes the freedom to make bad choices, choices that we might regret someday. Would I tell that to my own daughters? I have. Continue reading ‘Girls of the Ivy League,’ 1979
Reading Time: 3 minutes Surprise! All three commercial television networks scrambled to put campus comedies in their lineups. And I was in a unique place to write about them. Continue reading Channeling ‘Animal House,’ 1979
Reading Time: < 1 minutes “If only I could ever hope to write as powerfully as an O’Neill, as wittily as Wodehouse, or as skillfully as either! I’ll give it a go, but …” Continue reading Doubts loom large, 1979
Reading Time: 2 minutes Many of my year-end journal entries and most of my year-end columns for the newspaper started with a “good riddance” lede. This was the first. Continue reading Year in Review, 1978
Reading Time: 2 minutes One of the valuable things we do as writers is to pull together the little threads that are part of our story as individuals and as a society. Continue reading Week in Review: Week 51
Reading Time: < 1 minutes I started my journal entry for Christmas Eve, 1978, with a trite-but-true riff on Clement Clarke Moore’s “A Visit from St. Nicholas.” Doesn’t everyone? Continue reading The night before Christmas, 1978
Reading Time: < 1 minutes On this shortest day, a short excerpt from my 1978 journal reflects a young writer who sees a character’s tragic flaw as his own. Continue reading When life reflects art, 1978
Reading Time: 2 minutes Another journal entry from 1978: Will I ever finish a piece if my inner critic doesn’t like it? Continue reading Confronting the inner critic, 1978
Reading Time: 3 minutes 12/9/1978: I am on the horns of a dilemma, which might explain why I’m so disturbed. Today it’s particularly heart-wrenching, and I feel I have to record and address it. Continue reading The turning point, 1978
