Steve’s Blog
Writing is a powerful tool to greater self-understanding, but it’s a lot more than that: It’s a way of life. In founding the Wellstone Center in the Redwoods in 2013, Steve and Sarah were drawn to the challenge of taking the inspiring calm and natural beauty of their little swath of land at the end of Amigo Road and sharing that with visitors to help them energize their lives. The hope was that others could leave feeling a little closer to nature – and to themselves – and carry that feeling forward. In his regular blog, Steve explores the mysteries of writing, and of inspiring other writers, and he also delves into the delicate balance required to think less and feel more, to be excited by life but not let stress or time sickness poison our sense of the moment. Steve’s Blog is an effort to start a dialogue, one we hope you’ll take part in regularly.
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Steve’s Weekly Blog: On Knowing What to Leave Out
It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole book. - Friedrich Nietzsche A beginning writer new to the art of rewriting, or call it the craft of condensing, starts by pruning adverbs and prepositional phrases and graduates to vaporizing whole paragraphs or pages at a time. The truly accomplished writer does more with less from the outset. Writing is just thinking…Read More
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Steve’s Weekly Blog: If Satire Feeds on Anger, Why Is It Almost Dead?
We have no ideas, and they're pretty firm. - Joseph Heller The decline in satiric novels as a robust, recognized category of U.S. fiction tends to be taken as a foregone conclusion, lamented but passively accepted, even as the need for satire turns acute. I say: Let's not give up so easily. Satire and its cousin the lampoon (directed at a specific individual) function in the body politic like an immune system, seeking to…Read More
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Steve’s Weekly Blog: Keep the Dead Alive
The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones. - Shakespeare, Julius Caesar Most authors or would-be authors write out of some itch to outlast our heartbeat, to accomplish the improbable and have a mark we made live on beyond our life span, like our hominid ancestors scratching out forms on cave walls. We write to let an ephemeral spark inside of us feel less ephemeral, and…Read More
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Steve’s Weekly Blog: Be There for Sunrise
Well, if you wanna see the sun rise/ Honey, I know where - Bob Dylan Most mornings I watch the sun rise, taking the time with my baby daughter on my arm to point out the bands of color breathing life into the day over Monterey Bay, mouthing the word "sunrise" for her and naming as many colors as I can for her as she points and…Read More
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Steve’s Weekly Blog: A Great New Novel, Highly Recommended
As I rummaged through my pockets for money, a sound like wood planks slapping together broke the peace. Then again. My heart jumped up and my feet jumped back, unprepared for fired rounds. - Matt Gallagher, Youngblood Here's a heartfelt book recommendation, and one I hope you'll act on: Matt Gallagher's novel Youngblood, out this month from Atria, pulls off many things all at once, announcing a…Read More