No, I'm not going to talk about the Linda Blair move from The Exorcist. This post is about changing your mindset. (I wrote a post earlier this week about the success mindset, and this is yet different from that, too.) Specifically, changing your mindset when you are working on something that is hard. Yesterday, I […]
I have a reason for asking the question in the title. I've been going on and on about how I'm re-organizing my office, down to sorting through the oldest papers. And the work continued this weekend. I'm down to a box of old CDs to sort, which I'm not entirely sure what to do with, […]
This morning I was writing about a character. Her arc is to go from being what she considers to be a failure, to suddenly experiencing great success. So as I was tracing this movement, I started thinking about how to show what her failure looked like and felt like to her, and then what her […]
When something isn't working, there's a reason. I know. Duh. But how many times have you sat at your computer, beating your head against your desk, trying to make something work that isn't working? Trying to force a character to do something she doesn't want to do, or writing a scene in a location that […]
"Make work" is my all-purpose notation to myself that I use for both notes and on manuscripts. It is shorthand for "Make it work," and a very handy two words. If I'm writing notes, and they are a bit sketchy, I add, "make work," because I know in my brain what I mean, I just […]
Scenario #One: Life is going well. Really well. Your relationships are all in great shape, you're healthy, you eat right and exercise regularly. Your like your job, you have a great place to live, you love your pets, the sun is shining. However, your writing sucks. Nothing that you write works. You can't get […]
Yesterday, all writing and other activities came to a screeching halt. This happened suddenly. One minute I was in the middle of a writing session. The next minute I was paralyzed. I realized that everything I had written was complete and total crap. And that there was no use writing anymore, ever, for the rest […]
Attention, please. The following are no longer allowed during a writing session: 1. Whining 2. Worrying about the quality of your work 3. Obsessing over the odds for getting your work published 4. Wondering what others will think of your writing 5. Deciding that writing is a colossal waste of your time, because, really, what […]
"When I am writing my problems become invisible and I am the person I always was. All is well. I am as I should be." Roger Ebert I copied this quote from a profile of Roger Ebert that appears in Esquire. Nearly four years ago, Ebert had most of his lower jaw removed due to […]
First there was the story I read online about how the Northwest, including Portland, could expect a major earthquake of the sort that just decimated Chile sometime in the next 50 years. I hate earthquakes. I expect the earth beneath my feet to stay steady, thank you very much. Then I watched a little bit […]
