It is a wonderful rainy, blustery day here in Portland as I write this–my favorite, at least for once in awhile. And here’s what’s going on: What I’m Reading: Making Piece: A Memoir of Love, Loss and Pie and The Untethered Soul, both of which I’m pretty sure I was reading last week. Things have […]
Hemingway knew it and used it. I've expounded on it numerous times, including recently. (That juxtaposition of sentences makes it appear that I might be comparing myself to Hemingway, to which I say: bwahahahaha). It is the single most helpful tip for you to get words on the page, and here it is: KNOW WHERE […]
What Who I'm in Love With: My new grandson, Owen Lewis Hopman, born October 13, thus becoming the 9th Libra among our extended family and friends. He was two weeks overdue, and I'm convinced that he just wanted to make certain he had his very own birthday, rather than sharing it with a grandfather, grandmother, father or uncle […]
You’ve heard it a million times, and so have I. Hell, I’ve said it a million times: all you have to do to write is get yourself to the page and throw words at it. And yet, sometimes this is just ridiculously difficult. Like, for me, this morning, when I struggled with writing a scene. […]
To get more writing done, you could get up earlier, or stay up later. To get more writing done you could close the door to your office and post a sign threatening death and dismemberment to anyone who enters. You could escape to the coffee shop or go on a retreat. You could run away […]
A small round-up of items helpful for your writing… I've been writing a lot, how about you? But, um, you might have noticed I've not been blogging that much. One problem is that I can't access Typepad from the Chrome browser on my computer, and that means I have to go open Microsoft Edge, which […]
Rejection. It is a fact of the writer’s life. I wish I could tell you that this was not so. I wish I could tell you that everything you send off would get picked up immediately. But I can’t. It is just not the way the world works. And so, alas, if you are a […]
I'm just back from three weeks in Europe, one week for leading a writing workshop, and the other two for fun. However, I am a firm believer that even the two "fun" weeks contributed greatly to my writing career. Yeah, it might have looked like I was lolling about in the south of France, eating tapas […]
Where I've Been: Europe. Spain and France, to be specific. I was there for our annual Let's Go Write workshop, which this year focused on structure and was a grand success. This year it was held in Collioure, a lovely seaside town in the south of France. And guess what? Despite a busy teaching, sight-seeing, and […]
While I am out, I'm posting link round-ups of various sorts. I looked at the calendar and realized, Nanowrimo is a little over a month away! (If you don't know what Nanowrimo is, you probably won't be interested in these links. But for the record, it is National Novel Writing Month, wherein you write at […]
