Comments on: The moment of clarity

By: Laura

Laura — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 15:18:34 +0000

In reply to Kelly Damian. @Kelly- I did realize, though, after I was writing the new version, that I was able to use paragraphs from the pre-core idea version. So even though much of the writing seemed like thrashing around, I was able to use some of the work I did. Not too much, but some. So I guess it wasn't a total waste.

By: Kelly Damian

Kelly Damian — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 21:01:06 +0000

I loved your intro because I have the exact same feeling about the New Yorker. Mine also stack up, in large, intimidating piles, but so many of the articles are so, so great. I will definitely check out the “Structure” piece. Of course, I’m so backlogged I’m still reading the stories from six issues ago.

I agree with your point here. It feels like 75% of writing is pointless thrashing around, but once the core idea it seized on, it is so satisfying.

By: ARC

ARC — Sun, 13 Jan 2013 22:36:37 +0000

My moments of clarity are ALWAYS when I’m NOT willing them to come to me 😉 I have to get up and take a break before I can break through a difficult issue, whether at home or at work. Looking forward to the new e book 🙂

By: Elizabeth

Elizabeth — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 21:02:52 +0000

I had a moment like that. I had a difficult relationship with my alcoholic father and he was dying. Now it isn’t a hard jump to think of the pleasant times and the happy memories when someone you love lies in a coma and is slipping away. BUT how do I put it all into a cohesive powerful statement about my father’s life in the eulogy that I knew I had to deliver? How do I push through all the unhappiness and come up with a fragment of hope? There were powerful surges of emotion in so many directions. I wrote it and rewrote it in my head for days and then as I was holding his hand in the ICU in the middle of the night…yes they had visitation in the middle of the night… I had an epiphany. It flooded my very being like nothing I’ve ever had to write before or since. I suddenly knew exactly what to write and what the common thread was. It was 3 am but I wrote it in 30 minutes flat and it is one of my greatest pieces that I’ve ever written. People emailed and called me for months afterward. I still get asked for copies of it 5 years later. Hopefully I won’t need that type of motivation to write something that wonderful again.

By: Cara Marcano

Cara Marcano — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 13:26:49 +0000

I had some of these moments of clarity on vacation then I see what is still with me like a week after vacation. And it helped me make some concrete decisions and come back to it with more focus and drive. I think the break from it is what also helps you have clarity – the guy lying on the table, a good friend of mine, a run as you say here is a version of that. So an interesting topic as a working parent is how do you carve that out, that “break” from reality, at the right time to have that insight concretely. I’d like to read more about that. I’d like to take a run today say later in the day to have that so maybe that means a childcare extra for today that I hadn’t thought of etc. Just for an hour. B/c Friday morning I like to jump into work. But at 3 o’clock today they’ll be a lull. or at 5.