Charlotte Rains Dixon

On Story Questions and Traveling Home

After a month-long writing retreat in France, I am home! The trip back was even more chaotic than the journey there, but we made it. So here I am at home in Portland, smack in the middle of chaos. While I was gone, my daughter and her family moved in (that includes two small boys). […]

Charlotte Rains Dixon 7 years ago

Love letters

Lessons Learned From a Month-Long Writing Retreat (A Love Letter)

First of all, Happy Easter! And if you are not into that holiday, then you can always celebrate the coming of spring. As a kid growing up in the Unitarian church, that was the emphasis we learned. As you read this newsletter, I’ll be settling into an apartment in Lyon, France for two days, my […]

Charlotte Rains Dixon 7 years ago03/29/2018

Meditation Mindset Writing Process

Letting Go of Words, Work, and Writing

A friend wrote from Mexico last week. She said she was having a hard time letting go of the words she was writing. There were sentences she liked in her essay and she didn’t want to delete them. She suggested this might be something I’d like to write about. And she was right. Letting go […]

Charlotte Rains Dixon 7 years ago

Love letters

Losing Faith in Your Writing, Part 2 (A Love Letter)

Dear Writer, This week, I was happily working on my next novel—ten chapters in—when I got a cheery email from my agent. “Notes coming tomorrow!” That would be notes on my previous novel, which I’ve rewritten twice, working with her. Ruh-roh. Because if she was sending “notes,” that meant there was more rewriting to do. […]

Charlotte Rains Dixon 7 years ago03/23/2018

Travel

Lucky Me/Grateful Me/How Good It Is To Be a Writer

So, we’re coming up on the end of our third week here in Ceret. After Saturday, we have one more week here, and then Debbie and I have three days in Lyon before heading back to the states. Already, we are talking sadly about how fast the time has gone. How hard it will be […]

Charlotte Rains Dixon 7 years ago

Travel Writing Process

The Haze of Writing Forgetfulness

We arrived here in France two weeks and three days ago. Since then, I’ve written ten chapters on a new novel at a pretty good clip. Except for the two days last weekend when I stalled myself out. I’d written up to the point I had outlined. And then realized that several other scenes needed […]

Charlotte Rains Dixon 7 years ago

Love letters

Don’t Lose Faith in Your Writing (A Love Letter)

This week I read an ominous post on a friend’s Facebook feed. Something to the effect that people were praying for her, but there was no specific information beyond that. I messaged a mutual friend and learned that the worst had happened: my friend had died. I’m very far away from home, and so there […]

Charlotte Rains Dixon 8 years ago03/13/2018

Writing Process

All the Different Ways to Write (A Post on Process)

I’m sitting at a table on a terrace in Ceret, France, thinking about writing processes. (That’s my view in the photo to the left.) Okay, I’m also thinking about the wine and cheese and bread we’ll have for dinner. And taking a walk through the charming town in a little bit. And the delicious quiche […]

Charlotte Rains Dixon 8 years ago

Love letters Travel

Steady Improvement (A Love Letter)

So here I am in Ceret. (If you missed the story on this, click here to read all about it.) And I’m not going to lie, it is glorious. The temperatures are just starting to warm into the sixties, flowers are blooming, and the sky is a deep, deep blue against the worn stone of […]

Charlotte Rains Dixon 8 years ago03/09/2018

Uncategorized

Planes and Trains and Bomb Cyclones

I am in France. In Ceret, a small town in the Languedoc region, to be exact. I am here on a writing retreat and this morning, I’ve hit my goal of 2,000 words (a little over, actually), wandered around the town, then drove to the seaside village of Collioure to buy Soupe de Poisson. (Fish […]

Charlotte Rains Dixon 8 years ago

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