I'm an off-and-on journaler. I've had periods in my life–long stretches, like ten years–when I got up every day and wrote in a journal first thing. (And to prove it, I've got three huge tubs of them.) I've also had journaling droughts, where I don't actively write in a diary. Article after article suggests that […]
Are you an idea generating machine? Ha! Me either. But if you're a writer, you better be. I don't think I am by nature. But I have trained myself to be better at it–and you can too. Generating ideas is on my mind because I'm writing synopses for my next two books. (And by the […]
On Wednesday, I gave a presentation at a local retirement center. I talked about how and where writers get ideas, and interspersed readings from Emma Jean's Bad Behavior. Afterwards, I got to sell books. It was a lot of fun! Anne, the organizer (an amazing dynamo of a woman) told me that the room could […]
This is you, with all your ideas aglow in your head. It's a shiny new year and many of us have worked hard to note goals and dreams for 2014. No matter what your writing goals, they are all dependent on one thing: a plethora of ideas. So I thought it might be a good […]
A couple weeks ago I was greatly taken by a lecture I heard about the writing life, given by Helena Kriel at the Spalding MFA spring residency. The talk was, essentially, about how everything in the world feeds into our writing lives and our writing–if we are but present to the world. Further, when we […]
I've been doing some interviews (I'll have links soon–like tomorrow soon)for the release of Emma Jean, and one of the things that comes up is how I got the idea for the novel. I always have to stop and think about this because there's not one clear light bulb moment. It was more like an […]
And forgive me if that title sounds vaguely obscene. I'm not sure if it does or not, and I don't mean it to. So, that out of the way, let's talk about ideas. And goals. Awk! The two don't go together. Or do they? Well, yeah, kinda they do. Because you can have tons of […]
Thus beginneth. I woke up this morning with this post in my head and even though it was only 5:30, I jumped out of bed, grabbed a cup of coffee and started in. Yesterday a character began talking to me. I've had this character in my head for a year, making notes about her along […]
A few days ago I wrote a post titled, What About Not Writing? which pondered the question of whether it was ever a good idea to take a break from writing. As is often the case, the post garnered some interesting responses, because, well, I have fabulously interesting readers (Brief aside: as a general rule, […]
