Charlotte Rains Dixon

The Number Two Blogging Town

Common wisdom has always been that the city I live in, Portland, Oregon is a haven for writers. We have Powell’s after all, and for those of you who are only familiar with it online, the brick-and-mortar store is, and I’m not kidding, a whole city block full of books. Many people blame it on […]

Charlotte Rains Dixon 18 years ago12/11/2015

Writing

More Things I’ve Learned About Writing From my Pug

Be Zen. Wherever you go, there you are. If Pug (and it is so funny to me that people routinely refer to their pugs as Pug or The Pug, when we don’t, say, call golden retrievers The Golden or The Retriever) is sleeping, he is sleeping. If he is sitting with the family, he is […]

Charlotte Rains Dixon 18 years ago12/11/2015

Writing

Sometimes It is Okay to Tell (Instead of Showing)

I’ve written about how important it is to sometimes ignore all the rules in writing. This morning I thought about that again as I realized that many times it is appropriate to tell, rather than show. I know, I know, you’ve all heard a million times to show, not tell. And most of the time […]

Charlotte Rains Dixon 18 years ago12/11/2015

Writing

In Love With The World

I got up and worked on my new novel this morning (the one I didn’t write for Nanowrimo). And all is right with the world because of it. I’ve been very careful and fussy with this novel so far. This morning I let it rip. For whatever reason, and I have some theories, I was […]

Charlotte Rains Dixon 18 years ago12/14/2015

Books

Book Review: The Madonnas of Leningrad

Last week I finished reading The Madonnas of Leningrad, by Debra Dean. I’d always been interested in reading this book because Dean is a Seattle author and I happened to be in Seattle when her book was released. I remember sitting in the window of my room on the eighth floor of the Red Lion […]

Charlotte Rains Dixon 18 years ago11/03/2015

Writing

True Confessions

Does anybody other than me remember the magazine with the same name as this post? It was pretty racy stuff back in the day–women confessing their deep, dark secrets, though nowadays what with the advent of internet porn, the stories in True Confessions would be very tame. I’m not even sure if it exists anymore. […]

Charlotte Rains Dixon 18 years ago

Writing

Start From Where You Are Now

Start from where you are now is good advice for anything, really, but it is especially good for writing. You can’t really do anything else, yet we convince ourselves that we can, and that furthermore, we really can’t write anything until we do. What do I mean by this? Let me illustrate by talking about […]

Charlotte Rains Dixon 18 years ago11/03/2015

Writing

Oops…November is Over and so is Nanowrimo

Um…it appears that somewhere in a flurry of writing, November passed me by and it is now December. Are you guys aware of this? And so now that it is December, that means that Nanowrimo is officially over. I think it must have been around Thanksgiving that I abandoned the pretense that I was actually […]

Charlotte Rains Dixon 18 years ago11/03/2015

Writing

Zen and the Art of Writing

I’ve been working hard all week on a deadline for a book project I’m working on. I tend to get myself into these binds where I have to set aside all my other writing–blogging, working on the novel–in order to meet a deadline. At the same time, I’ve recently been starting to study Zen. Though […]

Charlotte Rains Dixon 18 years ago12/11/2015

Writing

Blogging Gratitude

Well, it has been Thanksgiving weekend here in the states and the third week of November in the rest of the world. While I’d like to report that my life has consisted of nothing but feasting and revelry, such is not the case. I will admit to my fair share of festive partying, but I […]

Charlotte Rains Dixon 18 years ago11/12/2015

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