What are your priorities as a writer? Do you have a firm sense of them? Knowing what comes first in your career and life can help you take hold of your time management. I started thinking about this after reading an article in the May 2018 issue of the Romance Writers Report, the magazine of […]
You wake up in a decently comfortable bed in room in an old, old house. And then you remember: I’m in France! Yes, you are. You took the train down from Paris the day before and arrived here just in time to wander the town and then meet the other workshop attendees for wine and […]
To my American readers–Happy Independence Day! And to the rest of you, I hope you find something of use in this post on writing and freedom. Here’s my question–are you caging your writing or setting it free? There’s been a spate of posts and articles on freedom this week, maybe more than usual because of […]
I had a phone conversation with my dear friend Terry Price this morning. (FYI–he and I are planning a creative writing workshop in Nashville November 2nd and 3rd, so mark your calendars if you’re in the area). We started talking about ritual and how each of us has heard fledgling writers ask questions such as: […]
We woke to rain in Portland this morning and I cheered. I know, I know, but as a native Oregonian, I love the rain. Plus it had been humid (by our standards) for awhile and it felt like we needed a good storm to clear it out. And that meant I didn’t have to water […]
“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 […]
Writing a novel is, at heart, all about making shit up. That phrase–making shit up–became the constant refrain of my Mapping the Novel workshop at the Sitka Center last week. (It was the BEST workshop ever, mostly because of my wonderful students, but also because of the fabulous staff and the spectacular location. I could go […]
Spring never fails to surprise me with its lush beauty. And this year is no different. Even though we don’t get much in the way of snow, it does feel like we’ve come through a long winter, seeing as how we’ve had record-setting rainfall amounts. And so spring is delighting me everywhere I look. Here […]
Sometimes I like to tell myself stories, say, when I'm doing the dishes (which my husband might claim is rare) or putting on my make-up and drying my hair. And it occurred to me recently, that a couple of my favorite stories fell into the category of colleagues doing Stupid Writer Tricks. (Because, in the […]
A Stack 'O Writing Books I learned a different way of looking at my writing this weekend, a way that I think will help inform how I plan and plot a novel. (One of the things I love best about writing is that there's always something new to learn. It's impossible to be bored by […]
