One of my dearest friends read last week’s post with the subject line, a love letter about winning, and wrote me that she thought it said whining. To which I responded, what an excellent idea for a newsletter. And so here we go. In the spirit of the Olympics, I am a championship whiner. I can whine about anything, and I […]
I’ve been working with one of my clients, who shall remain nameless (Hi, Mitch!) to trim down his long middle grade fantasy. Clocking in at over 140,000 words it is, as I said, long. Meanwhile, I recently set out to write a short story. Apparently, I have a hard time writing anything short. The story […]
Here’s reason #5,001 (I’m counting): that writing is a worthwhile activity: it’s good for your brain. Allow me to digress a bit. I’m teaching myself to crochet. (Head on over to the blog if you want to see a photo of my first finished piece, a scarf heavy enough to qualify as a weighted blanket […]
One day this week, I rose at 5 AM. I worked for an hour and a half—nailed the organization of a book project—and then drove to my son’s house for emergency babysitting duty at 6:30. By 9 AM that morning I’d knocked a big item off my to-do list, watched George, eaten breakfast and done […]
This morning when I got up at my usual early hour (made even earlier this week with the time switch), I had plans to work on the rewrite of my novel. Because that’s what I do when I get up early to write. It is my sacred time, devoted only to writing fiction. (Except for […]
Hi Writers, I babysat my 10-month-old grandson George one day this week, as I do most weeks, and as he gets older and more mobile I’m struck by one thing: his determination. He’ll attempt to climb on his rocking moose, for instance, but miss and plop on the floor. Up he scrabbles again. Then he […]
Dear Writers, Tomorrow (August 21) is the Great American Eclipse, and as you read this I’ll either be on my way or soon to be on my way to view it. Me and about a million other people—that’s how many visitors are forecast to arrive in Oregon, a broad swath of which is in the […]
There’s a lot of noise in the world at the moment. Political, and societal to be sure. But there’s also all the information we get from the interwebs constantly, all day and even all night long. And much of it is designed to ensnare us—to click onto the website, read the news story, buy the […]
Tuesday is Independence Day in the states. Yesterday was Canada Day in, um, Canada, which I think has something to do with becoming a country but I couldn’t quite tell from the Wikipedia page. (Forgive me Canadians, and perhaps one of you could enlighten me?) The idea of independence and freedom is afoot in the […]
Friend and fellow writer Jenni asked me an excellent question about writing rough drafts: when is the best time to share it with others? She asked if one should “dump, then do some editing, then share? Or just dump and plow on until you have a full first draft completed?” Such a good question. And, […]
