Writing From Your Own Guts

“Don’t bend; don’t water it down; don’t try to make it logical; don’t edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.” Anne Rice

While Rice was writing about Franz Kafka, this quote also describes Thoreau’s path. He was an essayist, a memoirist, a scientist, but more than these, he was Henry David Thoreau, a unique person pursuing his fascinations, weaving them together in his own idiosyncratic way.

In our bubbles of quarantine solitude, many of us have revisited our most intense obsessions. We’ll work to help each class member use the natural energy of fascination to become more himself or herself as a writer.

Please email me up to 1,000 words that you feel strongly about. If you only have an idea, send that. If you’re a thousand pages into a novel, send an essential four. Feel free to take a wild stab — this is a chance to talk things through with like minded friends.

Please send it no later than Wednesday, October 7, to heidi@heidijonschmidt.com . Send your work as a Word attachment, using Times New Roman, 12-point type. The class will go for two weeks, with 3 Zoom sessions and a private blog we can all post to through the days.

Heidi Jon Schmidt is the author of The Harbor Master’s Daughter, The House on Oyster Creek, and The Rose Thieves. Schmidt will help writers discover what makes good and original writing and how to follow their passions.