These were my thoughts entering 2022: https://bit.ly/3Q50YtD My optimism was clearly justified. There was one significant personal loss in our family. But also 2022 brought exciting changes to my writing. Let me share these with you. I felt my stories were not ready for prime time. And that I could do better. So, I took …
MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: Oh, really? So when I say: Nicole bring me my slippers and fetch my nightcap,” is that prose? PHILOSOPHY MASTER: Most clearly.MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: Well, what do you know about that! These forty years now I’ve been speaking in prose without knowing it!—Molière, The Bourgeois Gentleman, 1670 In the previous post, I wrote about …
My father was an honorable and a decent man. I still remember the first advice he gave me. “Don’t lie,” he said. “It’s so much easier to live your life when you don’t have to remember each version of the story you told different people.” He was honest to a fault. Never tried to manipulate …
The time goes on. Here’s my blog from January of this year. https://witoldniesluchowski.com/my-writing-in-the-new-year-2022/ I saw 2021 as the best year of my writing, so far. Moreover, I expected 2022 to be even better. And I am not disappointed. Since deciding to become an author close to ten years ago, I had written and published three …
What’s New in My Writing in 2022? Witoldniesluchowski.com 2.0 Read More »
Bentley and I I sit in front of the computer, thinking. For quite a while, my fingers didn’t touch the keyboard. My mind is outside the room, which I’ve arranged so carefully to avoid any distraction. I shut the blinds to separate myself from the outside world. Bentley, my dog, and a writing companion, sits …
There’s no writer’s block. Let’s end this years’ long controversy. Read More »
I remember how I felt seeing an exposed human heart for the first time. I was assisting my mentor with the coronary bypass surgery. After he split the breastbone, and incised the thick layer of the sack enveloping the heart, I saw a slowly contracting glob of muscle. No bigger than a human fist, spirally …
How do you raise the son, when your father is in prison for murder? Do you even want to have a son? Crime is committed in the operating room, and they blame the surgeon for it. Fatherhood is the most challenging job, and also the most rewarding. Watercolor by Kathy Flood
The first condition to become a writer is to have something to say. It reminds me of the anecdote from the stormy life of Napoleon. Each time the Frenchman conquered the town, he expected a 21-gun salute. One time the expectation was not met, and the town was silent. No sounds of celebration. He called …
This post was written on a Twitter request by people looking for this excellent writing advice given by an American fiction writer Alan Heathcock. It is re-posted as-is, preserving the original formatting and syntax. 1. Make a unique character, with a highly specific flaw that puts into question their ability to clearly interpret the world. …
It would be a mistake to treat any novel as autobiography. Rather, it’s an author’s insights into life’s secret places. Robert McKee.
The semicolon is not necessary, but useful. Tells the reader to slow down, but don’t stop.
There was a time during my tenure as a Chief of Staff when quite a few of our doctors died. Attending the funerals wasn’t that uncommon, but that time seemed like more than usual. I attended most of them, not ex officio, but because they were my friends. The ceremonies differed in the religion, style, …