While I’m in France, teaching writing, sitting by the Mediterranean, eating good cheese and bread, and drinking lots of wine, I’m offering either a collection of writing prompts, story starters, or exercises each week. Today I have a couple of writing exercises for you. I hope you will use them to jump-start your writing! Sometimes […]
Sometimes you gotta spend most of your time writing, and some times you gotta spend most of your time doing all the stuff that surrounds it. This is something all creatives (do we like calling us that? I can't decide) struggle with at times. And I believe if you can master the art of separating […]
Note: I grew up in the printing plant my father owned, and he had a whole stack of pads titled While You Were Out, with check boxes and lines to fill in about things that happened in his absence. I am going to be out for a few days at a wedding, so I thought I'd fun […]
I am a terribly fickle person. Most often, this fickleness applies to activities. Like cooking, for instance. I'll go on a kick where I'm interested in cooking. I buy cookbooks, I look up recipes, I watch the Food Network, I actually cook meals and occasionally even bake things. Then it all falls apart. My interest […]
At the fall orientation for the Loft, author Debra Moffitt (Awake in the World) did the keynote speech, which was really a workshop, and a presentation the following day. She began with a meditation designed to take us into our “secret garden,” the place of sanctuary for our spirit and creativity. And after we had […]
So, we teaching and coaching types love to give advice (except that the true essence of coaching is not so much giving advice as pulling what you yourself already know to be so out of yourself). I, for instance, love to tell people to do Morning Pages. (If you don't know what Morning Pages are, […]
Before we begin this brilliant post about my (ahem, sideways) alien (does anybody know why my Iphone turns photos sideways when it sends them to my computer?), I would like to point out that I'm once again offering free coaching sessions. You heard me. Free. All you have to do is head to this link, […]
Here's a little writing exercise for you. Its very simple. Write about something as if you are describing it to an alien who just landed on this planet. So, for example: The book is heavy and has a red cover, with glossy pages and lots of photos in it. Descriptive, if a bit bland. But, […]
Writing prompts…love 'em or hate 'em. Some people swear by them, while others shudder at the thought of using a writing prompt in their work. Because, too often, using random writing prompts can lead you astray. And let's face it, most prompts are a bit on the random side, aren't they? Those books of prompts […]
How we spend our days, is, of course, how we spend our lives. Annie Dillard So, I'm working on the rewrite of my novel. And one of the things I am attempting to do is deepen the secondary characters. To do this, of course, I must first deepen my understanding of them. Easy, right? Well, […]
