And this week, for something completely different, some random writing thoughts: Writing. My constant companion, my best friend. Until I decide I hate it. Because it’s hard. But sometimes it is really easy. Most of the time, though, it is hard. It’s the best life in the world. But it’s hard! That feeling you get […]
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 […]
One of the missions of this blog is to write about the writer's life, all of it, and for this writer (moi), travel for work is an integral part of it. My writing-related traveling began when I was accepted into the brief residency MFA program at Spalding University in Louisville, Kentucky, and fell into the […]
As I mentioned in my previous post, I'm in LA, actually Pasadena, visiting my dear friend Suzanne. I'm working a lot while here, but no matter, I'm somewhere other than my usual here. Last week I was at the Oregon Coast. Now, neither of these short vacations are trips to exotic locales. But they are […]
The traditional writing life: you write a novel, submit it to an agent, it gets sold to a good publishing house and they do a lot of work to market you. Ads in print publications, a book tour, readings and signings galore. If you are a literary type, you might take a job teaching writing […]
I'm leaving again tomorrow, this time for Nashville. I travel a lot, sometimes a lot lot. The last six months I have traveled a lot lot. In August I was in LA, September in Nashville, October in New Mexico (a real vacation, who knew people did that?), November in LA again and December in Nashville. […]
Last week at the Fall Writer's Loft orientation, we held a panel on The Writing Life. I moderated, and mentors Bill Brown, David Pierce, and Linda Busby Parker participated. It was a freewheeling and wide-ranging discussion, as I'd hoped. Since I was moderating, I scribbled notes, just in case the conversation lagged and I needed […]
I've been on hiatus. Unlike when the television networks do this to one of their shows, this was not actually a planned break, just one of those things that happen once in awhile in the writing life. Last week I moderated a panel at AWP, and as is the case with most conferences, didn't have […]
