Train Your Eye for Better Writing

Writer's Digest Better Writing Tess CallahanMy article in the September 2017 issue of Writer’s Digest Magazine explores three ways to add color to the canvas of your manuscript by using techniques adapted from traditional visual arts training: emulations, thumbnail sketches and underpaintings. It also offers bits of wisdom gleaned from artistic masters and gurus John Gardner, Natalie Goldberg, Stephen King, Roy Kinzer, Ann Lamott, Pablo Picasso and Francine Prose.  You can find the article on newsstands or here Feel free to contact me with questions or comments. I’m always looking to expand my ideas. Happy writing!

QWERTY’s Interview with Tess Callahan

from the Managing Editors of Qwerty Magazine

Author Tess CQwerty Interview Tess Callahanallahan challenged herself to write three hundred pages in three months. She successfully completed a draft of a sequel to her novel April and Oliver, and plans to send it to her agent this spring. Qwerty conducted an email interview to ask her about her creative process and what she calls “The love affair between creativity and constraint.” Click here to see her TEDx Talk on the subject.

When you gave yourself the constraint of writing a 300 page draft in three months, did you ever feel discouraged, and if so, what did you do to overcome it?

Discouragement is not something I allow in the door until the second draft, when it can be a useful tool. The first draft is a time to let the thing spill out like an unformed blob of clay. It’s hard to feel discouraged about something that’s only meant to be a blob. The second draft is when the shaping begins. At that point I reread what I’ve written, see the chasm between what I’m hoping for and what’s actually there, and start sculpting. If in the first draft the clay itself is not forthcoming, I let the thing combust and germinate in my head, mostly through walks in the woods, until I see it unfold cinematically on the screen of my mind and race home to write it down. Read More »