Being a writer is a tough gig, as previously noted. Hugely satisfying, and the only thing you can do if you are called to it, but it is a demanding task mistress and at all but the highest levels, the pay is low. So you might as well have fun while you are doing it. […]
I once told a mentor that I’d had an epiphany–to be a writer, you needed to know a lot about the world. And I believe this is true. As writers, we need to understand character in order to create ones that leap off the page. We need to understand nuances of place, so that our […]
I’m ready. I’ve got two projects I want to finish, one knitted, one crocheted, on the needles, and I’ve warned my husband that we’ll be eating our dinners in front of the TV for the next couple weeks. Because: Olympics. Because: Winter Olympics. I love them. I love watching the Olympics, especially the Winter Olympics. […]
On my writing retreat last weekend, I reread my novel. Yeah, that’s right. The one I told everyone how terrible it was. How it needed major surgery. How it had plot holes so big you could drive a truck through them. How the characters were undeveloped. In re-reading it I found that all of the […]
“In the beginning mind, there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.” Suzuki Roshi I don’t know about you, but I consider myself an expert. Yep, I sure do. Because I’ve been writing novels for a gazillion years and teaching fiction writing for half that time. I’ve studied long enough to have […]
Ha, you thought I’d forgotten, didn’t you? Because every year I choose three words to guide me. Except usually I do it in early December. Not this year, though. For some reason, most of December seemed like one big blur to me this year. But never mind. Here it is the last day of the […]
Scarritt Bennett Center I am back from Nashville, y'all. I went there to teach a workshop with my good writing friend Terry Price. We called it From Spark to Story, and planned it to be just that: a journey from gathering inspiration, to getting it onto the page, to shaping it into a story. […]
I've not harrassed myself people about this for awhile, so as 2015 starts, it seems a good time. And, there's a hashtag going around on Twitter so its hard to avoid. (Of course now that I've gone to look for it, I can't find it.) And, most importantly, I truly, deeply, madly believe in this […]
(In case you don't know–what, you've lived under a rock for the last umpteen years? Kidding, just kidding–my title is a take-off of a song from The Sound of Music, the best musical of ALL TIME, and no I'm not talking about the stupid rip-off live version with Carrie Underwood in it.) This is the […]
I was tagged by my purple-haired Twitter friend Kristina Martin (we live across the river from each other but have never met in person–one of these days, I hope we will) to participate in a Virtual Cookie Exchange Blog Hop. My first thought was that I don't do this kind of thing. This is a […]
