Did I just use the word “hack” in the title? I did. Those of us who have been around for a long time remember when “hack” was a word thrown at writers who had sold out, who wrote crap for money. But now it is more often used (some would say overused) as a synonym […]
Here is one thing I have learned for certain in the gazillion years I’ve been writing: that resistance always has meaning. Always, always, always. It is up to you to figure out what that meaning might be. But here’s the deal: once you do figure it out, then you can explore it. And get over […]
I wrote a guest post for Jessica Baverstock at Creativity's Workshop on the writer's Inner GPS, our internal guidance system that is never wrong and can help us greatly with our writing. (You can go read it now, I'll wait.) And because of that, I started thinking a lot about the Inner Critic, which is […]
What Holds You Up? I got the best horoscope ever this morning. Here it is: Become independent from the things that are holding you back, without abandoning the reliable things that hold you up. This seems more like advice for living than a horoscope, and it starting me thinking. First, what are the things that […]
Writers can always benefit by going back to the basics, right? Or not? And more to the point, if you've been writing for awhile, have you tried going back to the basics recently? It is not that easy. Going back to the basics seems like a good idea. You get the desire to strip it […]
Friday is often a busy day for me. For whatever reason, lately my entire afternoon has been taken up with appointments. And I just about always go out to dinner with family and friends on Friday night, because, I'll be honest, by Friday I really want a glass of wine. And, for whatever reason again, […]
No, I'm not going to talk about the Linda Blair move from The Exorcist. This post is about changing your mindset. (I wrote a post earlier this week about the success mindset, and this is yet different from that, too.) Specifically, changing your mindset when you are working on something that is hard. Yesterday, I […]
This morning I was writing about a character. Her arc is to go from being what she considers to be a failure, to suddenly experiencing great success. So as I was tracing this movement, I started thinking about how to show what her failure looked like and felt like to her, and then what her […]
Second Sight by Judith Orloff Three Rivers Press, 1996, 2010 I was offered the chance to review Second Sight and leapt at the chance because of the subject matter- intuition. I'm always curious about intuition and looking for new ways to access it. Reading this book got me jazzed about working with dreams and re-charged […]
Stop the presses for this news flash. I've been watching TV. Specifically, the Olympics. I often write about what a time waster watching TV is and I truly don't watch much of it myself, except, for reasons inexplicable to me, American Idol. But one thing I love is the Olympics, specifically, the winter Olympics. So […]
